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In the Shadow of Our Founders -- Part Two

© Brian Tubbs

Editor's Note: I have regrettably not been able to give this subject the comprehensive and thorough treatment it deserves. I have tried to cover the basics of the secessionist position, looking at it primarily as a disagreement between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and give the reader an idea as to how the Founders might have come down on the issue had they been alive in 1861. Alas, it is a near impossible task for three online articles. I hope you will find these articles at least marginally helpful in introducing the key elements to this eternal and highly controversial debate. Before reading this article, I would encourage you to read Part One (definitely the shortest of the three articles), which serves as the introduction to this series.

According to biographers James and Walter Kennedy, Jefferson Davis believed that the "glory of the Union resided in the principles of sound constitutional government as expounded by the Founding Fathers -- not territory, not land mass, not empire." In 1861, Davis supported the breakup of the Union, believing that the principles of the Founding Fathers had been compromised to the detriment of the South.

Likewise, Abraham Lincoln paid homage repeatedly to the Founders. Days before his inauguration, he told a crowd at Independence Hall in Philadelphia that he "never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence."

Yet if both these men claimed allegiance to the nation's Founding Fathers and their ideals, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, how could they then be on opposite sides of the dispute over secession and subsequently the bloodiest war in American history? And who was right?

Critics of the Confederate South, both today and in 1861, often redirect the conversation over secession to a moral denunciation of slavery. Indeed, it is impossible to ethically defend slavery, even understanding the economic and cultural context of the time. It is equally impossible to ignore the racist and pro-slavery statements made by Davis, Confederate Vice-President Alexander Hamilton Stephens, other leaders of the southern states, and newspaper editorials throughout the South leading up to (and, in some cases, during) the Civil War. Regardless, switching the subject to slavery fails to address the underlying question of secession. If the southern states had a right to secede from the Union, then it ultimately doesn't matter why they sought to do so. Whether their grievance was Lincoln's opposition to slavery's expansion or the government's unfair tariff policies, the reason for their secession doesn't matter as much as whether they had a right to do so.

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