Out of a snarky Twitter exchange, a small research project was born. A fellow who tweets under the name @defendheritage tweeted the following:

The Battle flag is not a racist symbol, it is a symbol of defiance to government intrusion and a declaration for… http://t.co/ygXYCKPvq1

— Robert Mestas (@defendheritage) October 19, 2013

…which led to an appropriately snarky response from JC Christian:

rt @defendheritage The Battle flag is not a racist symbol / These guys agree pic.twitter.com/dc9A2Rde0L

— Gen JC Christian (@JC_Christian) October 19, 2013

That got me thinking about how people try to say the Civil War was about almost anything except slavery. The most common alternative rationale for the Civil War is “states’ rights [to allow slavery],” which I took the liberty of amending just now.

No, actually, it really was about slavery. From the Texas Ordinance of Secession, February 2, 1861:

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party [that would be the Republican Party -ed.], now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color–a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. [Emphasis added.]

In some ways, the seceding states were actively opposed to states’ rights, such as when the concept interfered with their ability to enforce their own slavery laws in non-slave states. South Carolina declared in 1860:

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. [Emphasis added.]

In short, the seceding states were asserting a right to force the non-slave states to return fugitive slaves, regardless of what laws the citizens of the non-slave states had enacted.

I suppose one could accuse me of quote mining, but I have to wonder what other quotes would make the above quotes less inexcusable.

So, basically, it was about slavery.

Photo credits: Alexander Gardner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; User:Golbez.derivative work: Kenmayer (United_States_1861-01-1861-02-04.png) [CC-BY-2.5, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons.