Secession Was Not About Slavery

 Original in the possession of the Minnesota Historical Society.(Should be returned.)

First some context. The South did not secede to “preserve and extend slavery.” Its “pro-slavery“ arguments were not in response to any major political party in the antebellum period calling for emancipation. There was none! Southern secession was a result of 70 years of defending itself against Northern economic exploitation, Northern unwillingness to abide by Constitutional mandates and restraints, and a more recent Northern inclination to centralize sovereignty in the general government.  Slavery issues were only the latest “occasions” regarding Northern Constitutional infidelity. Therefore slavery issues were a derivative of a more fundamental concern over the North’s history of disregard for the Constitution in its quest for political and economic control of the US. 

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