Why did the Southern states secede from the Union?
The Confederate states tell us in their own words:
South Carolina, the first to secede ( http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp ): The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United State, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue. The word “slaves” is mentioned dozens of times.
Mississippi, the second to secede ( http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp ): Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. The word “slave,” “slaves” or “slavery” appears seven times.
Florida, the third to secede ( http://www.civilwarcauses.org/florida-dec.htm ): The nullification of these laws by the Legislatures of two thirds of the non slaveholding States important as it is in itself is additionally as is furnishing evidence of an open disregard of constitutional obligation, and of the rights and interests of the slaveholding States and of a deep and inveterate hostility to the people of these States. Variants on the word “slavery” appear 14 times.
Alabama, the fourth to secede ( http://civilwarwiki.net/wiki/Alabama_Ordinance_of_Secession ): Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security… And: And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as a permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States… Variants on “slave” appears 9 times.
Georgia, the fifth to secede (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp ): The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. Variants of “slave” appear no fewer than 35 times here.
Louisiana, the sixth to seceded, apparently did not publish a declaration of causes or elaborate in its secession ordinance.
Texas, the seventh to secede ( https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html ): Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery–the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits–a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them? Variants of “slave” appear 21 times. And, in its ordinance ( http://www.constitution.org/csa/ordinances_secession.htm#Texas ):
WHEREAS, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and…
WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression…
Virginia, the eighth to secede ( http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp ): The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States…
Arkansas, the ninth to secede ( http://www.nytimes.com/1861/06/08/news/the-secession-of-arkansas.html ) does not mention slavery.
Tennessee Gov. Isham Harris, in calling for his state to secede, ( americancivilwar.com/documents… ): The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States, have produced a crisis in the affairs of the country, unparalleled in the history of the past, resulting already in the withdrawal from the Confederacy of one of the sovereignties which composed it, while others are rapidly preparing to move in the same direction.
Variants of “slave” appear more than 40 times.
North Carolina, the tenth to secede, does not offer causes in its declaration ( http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-civilwar/4587 ), and slavery is not mentioned.
Likewise, Missouri’s declaration does not mention slavery, but makes a reference to seized personal property: http://www.pricecamp.org/csamo.htm
Kentucky, the last to secede, veils its references to slavery as states’ rights ( http://www.constitution.org/csa/ordinances_secession.htm#Kentucky ): Whereas, the Federal Constitution, which created the Government of the United States, was declared by the framers thereof to be the supreme law of the land, and was intended to limit and did expressly limit the powers of said Government to certain general specified purposes, and did expressly reserve to the States and people all other powers whatever, and the President and Congress have treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the masses of Northern society, and instead of giving protection with the Constitution to the people of fifteen States of this Union have turned loose upon them the unrestrained and raging passions of mobs and fanatics, and because we now seek to hold our liberties, our property, our homes, and our families under the protection of the reserved powers of the States, have blockaded our ports, invaded our soil, and waged war upon our people for the purpose of subjugating us to their will…
TL;DR – Hey, Confederate states, why did you break away from the Union?
Confederate states: The U.S. Constitution says that certain rights are reserved for the states to decide for themselves and so we decided we want to keep slavery. But the non-slaveholding states up north elected a president from an abolitionist-leaning party that wants to take away our right to decide to keep slavery and wants to take away our slaves (our property). When we preemptively resisted this oppression, they moved to penalize us, so now we slaveholding states are banding together and getting the hell out.
ADDENDUM 1
Arkansas may not have mentioned slavery in its declaration, but when it laid out a list of complaints at its secession convention, these were the top ones given:
“1. The people of the northern States have organized a political party, purely sectional in its character; the central and controlling idea of which is hostility to the institution of African slavery, as it exists in the southern States, and that party has elected a President and Vice President of the United States, pledged to administer the government upon principles inconsistent with the rights, and subversive of the interests of the people of the southern States.”
“They have denied to the people of the southern States the right to an equal participation in the benefits of the common territories of the Union by refusing them the same protection to their slave property therein that is afforded to other property, and by declaring that no more slave states shall be admitted into the Union. They have by their prominent men and leaders, declared the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict, or the assertion of the principle that the institution of slavery is incompatible with freedom, and that both cannot exist at once, that this continent must be wholly free or wholly slave. They have, in one or more instances, refused to surrender negro thieves to the constitutional demand of the constituted authority of a sovereign State.”
“They have declared that Congress possesses, under the constitution, and ought to exercise, the power to abolish slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, and in the forts, arsenals and dock-yards of the United States, within the limits of the slaveholding States.”
“They have, in disregard of their constitutional obligations, obstructed the faithful execution of the fugitive slave laws by enactments of their State legislatures.”
“They have denied the citizens of southern States the right of transit through non-slaveholding States with their slaves, and the right to hold them while temporarily sojourning therein.”
“They have degraded American citizens by placing them upon an equality with negroes at the ballot box.”
(https://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/arkansas-makes-demands-concerning-slavery/)
