Why the South Seceded

Why the South Seceded

By John H. Reagan, 1903

Hon. John H. Reagan

[Address of Hon. John H. Reagan, only surviving member of the Confederate States Cabinet, before the R. E. Lee Camp, at Fort Worth, Texas., April 19, 1903.]

Comrades, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I answer your request for a statement of the cause of the war. It would be pleasant to speak of the heroic valor of the Confederate soldiers, of the skill and intrepidity of their officers, of the patriotism and wisdom of the members of Congress who enacted the laws for the organization and conduct of the Confederate government, of the great and patient labor of the Confederate cabinet and their assistants, of the masterly statesmanship, self-sacrificing devotion, and sublime courage and constancy of President Jefferson Davis, and of the matchless devotion, services, and holy prayers of the women of the Confederacy for the success of the cause in which their fathers, husbands, and sons were engaged. But for the present I must forego the discussion of these interesting themes, and call your attention from the glories of the past to the questions of future interest.

During the war, 1861 to 1865, and ever since there has been a studied, systematic effort on the part of those who were our adversaries to pervert and falsify the history of the causes which led to that war, and the conduct of the war, and to educate the public mind to the belief that it was a causeless war, brought about by ambitious Southern leaders. And it is much to be regretted that this policy has had a very large measure of sticcess. This has been brought about largely by the baseless assumptions in acts of Congress and the doings of the Executive Department, iu the action of State Legisla tures and of political conventions, the declarations of public speakers, and by the writers in newspapers and magazines.

It will be the purpose of what I shall say to-day to show the great wrong and injustice done to those who supported thc Confederate cause, by this systematic falsifying of the great facts of history on this subject.

In proposing to do this we must recognize the fact that that great war ended nearly forty years ago, and that we are now fellow-citizens with those who occupied the other side, living in the same government, under the same Constitution, laws, and flag, and interested as they are in the peace of the country and the welfare of all its people, with no desire to revive the passions and prejudices of the war, and with an earnest wish for the best fraternal relations between the people of the two sections of the country. While this is our earnest wish, we cannot consent to a perversion of history which would brand the defenders of the Confederate cause as rebels and traitors, and teach that falsehood to our children and to posterity. And we are led to hope that in after times, when the passions of the war have subsided, and when the prejudices engendered by it have died out, that none of the people of this great republic will wish such a stain to be attoched to any part of their fellowcitizens. However this may be, iL is a paramount duty on our part to preserve and perpetuate the real history of the causes of that greatest war of modern times, as those causes are witnessed by the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, by the history of the action of the Congress, of the courts of the country, of the messages of Presidents, by the acts of the Governors and Legislatures of States, by the declarations of political conventionsùin fact, by the political history of the United States down to the time when that political crusade was actively commenced which led up to that bloody conflict. Fortunately for the truth of history, these facts appear in the imperishable records of the Federal and State governnients, and in the entire history of this country which preceded the war, and it is to these facts, which cannot be successfully controverted, that I shall appeal to-day.

It has been to a large extent assumed that negro slavery was the cause of that war. This is not strictly true. It was the occasion of the war, but not the principal cause of the war. The real cause of the war was sectional jealousy, the greed of gain, and the lust of political power by the Eastern States. The changing opinions of civilized nations on the subject of slavery furnished the occasion which enabled political demagogues to get up a crusade which enabled them in the end to overthrow, in part at least, the Constitution of the United States, and to change the character of the Federal government by a successful revolution.

This sectional jealousy was strongly developed at die time of the purchase of the Louisiana territory, in 1803. That purchase was bitterly opposed, especially by the people of the New England States, one of the grounds of opposition being that it would add to the power of the agricultural States and be opposed to the interests of the manufacturing States, for then, as ever since, they desired to control the policy of the Federal government, and to use it as an agency for the promotion of individual and sectional interests. And in their opposition to this measure they threatened to secede from the Union. This jealousy was still further manifested at the time of the war of a war which was gone into more for the protection of the shipping interest of the New England States, and for free trade and sailors' rights, than for any other cause. They denounced that war and gave encouragement to the enemies of the United States, furnishing signal lights to the enemy. Their Members of Congress, their Governors of States, their State Legislatures, and a convention called for the purpose threatened to secede from the Union. This jealousy again manifested itself when Missouri was admitted as a State, because, as they assumed, it would increase the power of the agricultural States and be against the interest of the manufacturing States. And on like grounds they opposed the acquisition of Texas and or the territory of Mexico, acquired as a result of the war with that country. And in their greed to levy tribute on the South by means of high protective tariffs they drove South Carolina into nullification in 1831, and an armed conflict was only averted by a compromise reducing the duties on imports.