Dear Editor:
First I’d like to congratulate Mr. Hammitt on an excellent letter; well-written, persuasive, and on the surface historically correct. But, there are thousands of proofs that slavery wasn’t the cause of disunion or secession.
First and foremost, there is the original 13th Amendment, also known as the Corwin Amendment, that was the attempt made by Congress to keep the Southern states in the Union.
The first 13th Amendment guaranteed slavery in perpetuity and made it impossible to correct by future amendments. The Amendment was ratified by two states and should anyone care to check President Lincoln’s first inaugural address, you’ll find that the president said he would sign the amendment if it reached his desk.
If disunion or secession were simply or even mainly about slavery, they – the South – could have won that right without anyone firing a single shot.
President Lincoln was not a supporter of slavery, but it was his belief stated more than 300 times in his speeches and writing that the preservation of the Union was the primary reason for the War with the South.
I, too, have hundreds of letters, newspaper articles, diaries and political speeches from the 1860-1865 period most from the Southern perspective. Every single message from a Confederate soldier says they were fighting because their country was invaded. I know what historians say, just because you have a Ph.D. after your name doesn’t mean you are always right. Those who doubt that fact should contact my wife who has a copious amount of proof to the contrary.
For just a second, can we forget the deep philosophical questions and attempt to use common sense?
All history is written by the winners and few winners want to look so petty as to say I wanted my neighbors land or seaport. Instead with the ability to look backwards at what has occured, the winners ALWAYS select the noblest cause as the reason they fought the war. This is commonly called bull-poop in the South.
Actually every war in history has been fought over one of two reasons, money or power. Dress it up however you choose to, but in the final equation it will be one or the other.
Can we try to apply this to the war for Southern independence? If the Southerners were such an impossible people why wouldn’t the North be glad to be away from such lowlives? Why are wars fought?
Anyone who is a serious student of history and can read a balance sheet recognizes that the only way the federal government raised money prior to the war was through tariffs on goods imported from usually England or France, and on cotton and tobacco sent primarily to those countries and the rest of Europe.
From 1820 through 1860 fully 79 percent of all tariffs were collected from Southern imports and exports. This funded the federal government payroll, and capital improvements all through out the northeast U.S.
Though equal or larger in landmass, less than 10 percent of the money collected in the South was returned to any of the Southern states to make internal improvements such as railroads, roads, bridges, and port improvements. In fact except for the military forts being built the total expenditure in the South was less than one percent.
Apparently it isn’t taught that President Lincoln ran on a platform to increase the tariffs on all Southern goods, some increasing to as much as 48 percent.
His election became a signal that the South was to become a serf state, no longer able to govern themselves. This is where the states’ rights people jump in, but though they are correct, they seldom can explain exactly what states right they were seceeding to protect.
If the tariffs ever reached the nearly 50 percent level President Lincoln promised, no Southern farmers, plantation owners, or southern businesses could have stayed in business. The cost of bringing a crop to harvest, shipping, and commissions to sales agents would have made those producing the crops start out in the hole with no chance of ever being self-sufficient.
Finally, again, should anyone care to look it up, Salmon P. Chase, at that time secretary of the treasury, asked President Lincoln why he didn’t let the South go? Let the South go? Let the South go! Where then shall I get the money to govern?
Slavery was an issue between the North and South, as was education, literature, poor Yankee craftsmanship vs. goods made in France and England, and the fact that the southern people, even those dirt poor, never believed they weren’t as good as Yankee millionaires. Needless to say this was a constant source of irritation to those Yankees.
Finally about Slavery, no historian suggests that more than 10 percent of all Southerners owned slaves. That means 90 percent didn’t own slaves. Further the Confederate Constitution did two things the U.S. Constitution did not. It recognized GOD as the Creator and it forbade all slave trade with any nation or state not part of the Confederacy. So I ask you to check the Internet and see if everything I’ve offered isn’t factual.
If what I say is true, is it more likely that the Union invaded the Confederacy over money or to free slaves.
If it was to free slaves why wasn’t that mentioned prior to 1863 and why if slaves were freed in the South at the end of the fighting in April of 1865 why did it take until 1866 after the ratification of the second 13th Amendment for slaves to be freed in the Union states and territories?
As a famous Tennessean once said, “Be sure you are right, then go ahead.” (Davy Crockett.Rev. Dr. William H. Swann

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