In his Washington Post column E.J. Dionne writes that "[t]here remains enormous denial over the fact that the central cause of the [Civil War] was our national disagreement about race and slavery, not states' rights or anything else." Dionne notes that in his March 21, 1861 "Cornerstone Speech" the Confederate's vice president, Alexander Stephens, stated that the "proper status of the Negro in our form of civilization" was "the immediate cause of the late rupture" and that Thomas Jefferson was wrong in his belief "that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature." Stephens continued: "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the white race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth."
Dionne concludes that "there is to this day too much evasion of how integral race, racism and racial conflict are to our national story. We can take pride in our struggles to overcome the legacies of slavery and segregation. But we should not sanitize how contested and bloody the road to justice has been. We will dishonor the Civil War if we refuse to face up to the reason it was fought."
For South Carolina's, Mississippi's, Georgia's, and Texas' secession declarations, click here.
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