WAR FOR SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE 1861-1865 aka CIVIL WAR

By James King

There were many parallels between the American Revolution for American Independence and the War for Southern Independence. After many years of economic abuse by England the 13 American colonies seceded from England and fought a war 1775-1783 to achieve Independence and form a new nation The United States of America. From the earliest colonial days until 1861 major political, economic and cultural differences existed between the Northern New England colonies and the Southern colonies. By 1860 immigration in the north had increased the population to approximately 3 times that of the Southern states. After many years of political, economic and criminal abuse by the Northern states the Southern states made a decision to secede from the Union and form a new nation, The Confederate States of America. It is a well-established fact that the winner of a war writes the history. The Northern and Southern perspectives concerning the causes and reasons for the war commonly known as the Civil War differ greatly. The war has been primarily presented as a war to defend and maintain slavery with some emphasis on the issue of States Rights. There was only one cause of the war. The South was invaded and responded to Northern aggression. But there were 10 causes for Southern secession. One of the primary reasons was the tariff tax issue. After the war of 1812 Southerners had agreed to a 10% tariff to stimulate American industrial production. By 1820 the tariff became a greed factor for the North which is today referred to as corporate welfare. South Carolina almost seceded from the Union 1828-1832 due to the tariff rate being raised to 40% which was known in the Southern states as “The Tariff of Abomination”. Lincoln had promised the Northern industrialists that he would raise the tariff if elected and the upcoming Morrill Tariff Tax was to be 47%-51%. The South was being treated as an agricultural colony and bled dry and forced to pay 75% to 85% of the money to operate the Federal government by this unfair sectional tariff. The excessive tariff tax was almost as abject as that of the Roman provinces under their Proconsuls nearly 2000 years ago except that New England added hypocrisy to robbery. The war for Southern Independence was a cultural war. Most Southerners were descendants of Celtic immigrants from western England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. New Englanders were primarily of Anglo-Saxon and Viking decent from eastern big city England and major cultural differences existed. States’ Rights vs. Centralization was another major issue. America was formed as a Constitutional Federal Republic, but Northerners wanted to change American Government to a Socialist Democracy. In 1848 in Europe the Socialist Revolution led by Karl Marx failed. In 1849 and 1850 he sent about 2,000 European Socialists, primarily Germans, to New York City. These Socialists were highly educated and intelligent. They joined with American Socialists led by Horace Greeley and Charles Anderson Dana. Dana had been to Europe before the war and had met Karl Marx. Abraham Lincoln had been a pen pal to Karl Marx since the late 1840’s. The European and American Socialists formed the Republican Party in 1854 which was very similar to the modern Socialist Atheist Democratic Party. Within 6 years they had figured out how to start a war and blame it on the south. The Ft. Sumter incident was a set up as proven by correspondence between Lincoln and Admiral Gustavus Fox. Within several years after Southern defeat in 1865 America was changed to a Socialist Democracy in which virtually all powers of sovereignty were removed from the states and power concentrated in Washington DC. The 14th Amendment removed most of the States Rights from the states and the people as recognized in the 9th and 10th Amendments. Major religious differences existed between the North and the South. The South was primarily Orthodox Christian whereas many Northerners were Atheist, Unitarians, Transcendentalists, Secular Humanists, and various other religious cults and isms. Between the early 1800’s and 1860 numerous groups of Northerners formed Socialist groups which considered women and children community property and advocated free love. Southerners were concerned about what type of country America would become if these people had their way. Control of Western territories was another major issue. New England formed Immigrant Aid Societies and paid for Northern people who had political ties to New England to move to Kansas and Nebraska. The South was made to feel unwelcome in these new territories and New England sent psychopath John Brown to Kansas where he murdered Southerners who were not even slave owners. The Civil War began in 1854 in Kansas not on April 12, 1861 at Ft. Sumter SC. The great English writer Charles Dickens summed up the situation in one sentence “The Northern onslaught against Southern slavery is a specious piece of humbug designed to mask their desire for the economic control of the Southern states”. New England wanted the South’s resources, cotton, land, timber, and coal, for pennies on the dollar and had for many years slandered and condemned the South in Northern newspapers which had created sectional animosity. Southerners were tired of reading about what bad and evil people they were because their neighbors owned a few slaves. Hypocritical New Englanders were primarily responsible for the development of slavery in America and the port cities of New England had grown wealthy due to the slave trade but after it became unprofitable they accused Southerners of grave moral sin while the money they made from the slave trade was still in their pocket. Even though the economic infrastructure of the port cities of New England had been based on the slave trade, small groups of extreme radicals and fanatics in New England demanded instant abolition of slaves as opposed to gradual emancipation which was already occurring in the South. 68 Out of 117 Republicans signed a resolution advocating terrorism against the South with plans to create a massive slave rebellion which would have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Southern men, women and children as had occurred in Haiti (Saint Dominigue) between 1791 and 1803. After 7 of the lower Southern states seceded from the Union Lincoln caused the secession of the upper Southern states by calling for 75,000 volunteers to put down what he called a rebellion. Southern secession was legal by the 10th Amendment and in 1865 and 1867 U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase stated that secession was not rebellion and if any former members of the Confederate governmental or military were brought to trial what the North had won on the battlefield would be lost in a court of law. Jefferson Davis was released from prison and no former confederates were ever tried for treason.

Contact James W. King at jkingantiquearms@bellsouth.net for an unedited copy of my article “The 10 Causes of Southern Secession” and other articles.