Signature Assignment

Sienna Brown
8th Period

The South Carolina Declaration of Secession and Jefferson Davis’s inaugural speech are

famous writings from the Confederate States of America defending slavery and considerable

catalysts for the Civil War. Both Writings claimed that abolishing slavery would be against their

constitutional rights and a mockery of Southern institutions. They attempted to justify this by

claiming that members of the Republican party advocating for the abolitionist movement were an

attack on the Southern states themselves and would leave the government corrupted in the

Republican’s favor.

These writings outlined many objections towards Lincoln’s presidency and the United

States government. Many of these fears were rooted in the idea that the wealthy slave owners in

the South would lose their wealth and status if slavery were abolished. In the official document,

the claim was that slavery was a constitutional right and to abolish it would be “a warfare on the

domestic institutions of Southern states.” Jefferson Davis went as far as to describe the abolition

of slavery as “perverse” on multiple counts in his speech. He and many others viewed the

growing abolitionist movement as a corruption of Congress to ensure that the Republican voice

was in favor. These claims of their constitutional rights being trampled were paradoxical when

compared to the fact the confederacy was attempting to ensure that African Americans would

continue to have no rights at all. Additionally, the irony continued when the Confederate States

of America left the nation, sparking the Civil War and inadvertently ending slavery in the United

States.
Many of the defenses of slavery claimed it was protected in the Constitution. Throughout

American history, the topic of the United States Constitution and the intended meanings left by

the founding fathers has been heavily debated. This was the case with the secession of the

confederate states, with the South claiming that the constitution defended their right to own

slaves with additions like the 3/5 clause. However, this was countered with the claim that the

rights of every American to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness claimed in the Declaration of

Independence included African Americans and that there were no references to slavery in the

original constitution. Both sides drew on references to the founding fathers, similarly to the

Jefferson Davis speech, drawing allusions to founding fathers like Benjamin Fraklin being anti-

slavery and oppositely using examples of the many founding fathers who were slave owners.

Using the stance of their personal liberties and constitutional rights being at stake was a

way for the South to represent the morbid argument of continuing slavery as something other

than wanting to continue to grow their wealth with free labor and continue in their quality of life.

Both writings were introduced before the Emancipation Proclamation, and despite their fighting

for the continuation of slavery, the Civil War was the reason the thirteenth Amendment came to

be. Lincoln claimed the war was not about him fighting slavery but about keeping the states

together, and the South’s fight is what caused the Emancipation Proclamation to be created.