History Memes

There's another angle to this, which is federal power vs states' rights. See, the slave-owning states actually controlled the federal government, owing to the majority of Senators and Congressmen who were pro-slavery. They had passed federal legislation that required escaped slaves to be captured and returned to their former owners, and they were pissed that anti-slavery states were ignoring or opposing the federal law. States like Wisconsin and New Hampshire were freeing any slaves that arrived in their borders, and Lincoln had indicated (without an explicit campaign promise) that he would not enforce the federal law and try to supercede individual states. Nor would he force new states, like Kansas, to enforce slavery against the will of their nacent state governments.

Leaders in what would become Confederate states were angry that individual states were defying federal power. They resigned from Congress because they opposed states' rights when it came to slavery. It was only when they tried to secede that they argued a state's right to leave the Union, kicking off the Civil War.

So why do bigots wave Confederate flags and froth at the mouth screaming about states rights, when the actual Confederates explicitly opposed states' rights? That's because in the 1920-60s, during the civil rights movement, states were being forced to end discriminatory practices, and those state governments didn't want to stop being racist. That's when they made states' rights a rallying cry, linking it to the Confederate past to stir up bigoted nostalgia for a more hateful time. It is why Nixon came up with the Southern Strategy to build his party on ignorant dipshits.

So if you think the Civil War was fought over States' Rights, you're not exactly wrong, but you probably have the bigots on the wrong side of the argument.