Slavery In Secession

Slavery’s Role in Secession
“Our new government is founded upon…the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man.” This quote by Alexander Stephens shows one of the basic driving principles behind slavery in the south. Slavery in America began long before the country existed. It began with Native Americans and transitioned to Africans after 1619 (Rosentreter, Lesson 2, 2018). The slave trade with Africa brought 600,000 African Slaves to the 13 colonies (Rosentreter, 2018). After, America was born slavery continued in the south while it was ended in the north. Slavery in the south then began to grow, after Eli Whitney’s cotton gin made it more profitable, then it had been in the past (Rosentreter, 2018). The south wished to protect
This was an argument that was used mainly by Georgia when they decided to leave union. “A united north was now strong enough to control the government in all of its departments.” This statement was their basis for leaving the union. It was a belief that the south could no longer defend slavery while within in the union from the more populous north. Mississippi had a similar stance “We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property (slaves) worth billions of money, or we must secedes” Mississippi also saw the ultimate destruction of slavery in their near future if they remained in the union. Mississippi and all of the other Deep South states believed that if the Border States remained in the Union, the federal government would eventually take away their slaves. It was due in part to this belief that the Deep South argued to the Border States that secession from the Union was their only viable option to retain
In the end these arguments were only partially successful. The Deep South was successful in gaining four additional states for the Confederacy, but could not gain the other four Border States. The confederacy eleven states strong still had a very little chance of winning a prolonged war with the Union. And in the prolonged war with the Union large areas of the Deep South were destroyed. When the war was over the Confederacy was disbanded and slavery was abolished from America. For all of the Deep South’s beliefs that they were fighting for a just cause and to defend their way of life. They could not overcome the superior resources of the North and were forced back into the union and would forever be