11. Secession and the Confederacy were not about slavery
During the period which began during Reconstruction and has continued since under the auspices of the Lost Cause, the factors which led to the American Civil War have been claimed by apologists as being individual freedom, state’s rights, and federal tyranny. These apologists deny that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. They argue that the majority of southerners who fought in the war did not own slaves, ignoring the issue of slavery being an accepted way of life in their communities. To believe that slavery was not a cause of the Civil War – indeed its main cause – is to believe in a myth which emerged long after the combat ended and the Lost Cause and the romance of the antebellum South became prevalent.
On March 21, 1861, then Vice-President of the Confederate States Andrew Stephens acknowledged that the Confederacy was based on slavery and that “its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – submission to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition”. Legendary Confederate cavalryman John Singleton Mosby put it bluntly after the war saying, “The South went to war on account of slavery”. Mosby was also dismissive of attempts to rewrite the causes of the war, pointing out that South Carolina had cited defense of slavery in its secession, and added, “South Carolina ought to know what was the cause of her seceding”.