The controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments offers an opportunity to counter one of the biggest lies in American public discourse: the view that the Civil War was fought over the issue of “states’ rights” rather than slavery. It is common for whites in both the North and the South to argue that the Stars and Bars and Confederate monuments are symbols of “heritage, not hate.” In their telling, the Confederate rebellion was not about slavery and white supremacy, but instead an honorable attempt to stop a despotic federal government from abridging the rights of states guaranteed under the US Constitution.
Nothing could be further from the truth; and if Americans are ever to progress in eradicating the stain of racism, they must acknowledge that the Confederacy was not—never was and never could become—a noble cause. Although in defeat Southerners invented the myth that the Civil War was fought to preserve “states’ rights,” this rationalization was an ex post facto whitewash of the truth. In reality, the Confederacy was simply a treasonous revolt undertaken in defense of slavery. At the time of secession, the US Constitution did not prohibit slavery. Indeed, Southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had made quite sure that slavery would be preserved and protected in the original constitutional order.
Six slave states and six free states sent delegations to the convention in Philadelphia (Rhode Island did not send any delegates). Each state was given one vote and nine votes were required to pass any measure, thus giving the southern states effective veto power in drafting the constitution. In addition, 25 of the convention’s 55 delegates were themselves slave holders, with a huge self-interest in preserving slavery. Of the 84 clauses in the original constitution, six concerned slaves and their owners and five had implications for slavery; and of these 11 clauses, 10 protected the institution of chattel slavery.
Although the clauses and their implications for slavery were openly debated, the framers were nonetheless shamefaced about the fact that the new constitution, ostensibly drafted to “secure the blessings of liberty,” in fact authorized the enslavement of 18 percent of the new nation’s inhabitants. Adopting what historians have called the “principle of non-disclosure,” the words slave and slavery were deliberately stricken from the original document, nor was there any mention of Africans or Negroes. In the original Constitution, slaves simply became persons “held to Service or Labour,” or simply “other Persons.”