Territorial Slavery and Southern Secession

Introduction: The Economic Foundation of Territorial Slavery

Not long after the founding of the nation, the people developed industry to provide for the growth of a rising land. An enormously lucrative method emerged and became known as the "peculiar institution." This institution manifested most acutely in the southern states. The economically efficient system of slave labor connected with cotton harvesting and distribution generated enormous wealth, facilitated rapid growth, and seemed almost destined to spread among more newly acquired territory. However, this expansion was prevented. After a period of growth, a moral opposition took hold in the northern states, forcing opposing positions on the matter that brewed significant animosity. This friction over territorial slavery eventually led to disunion. Though the North viewed the South as a twisted robber baron confederacy, the South viewed themselves as captains of industry, willing to face disunion to avoid abolition and protect their economic security. Though some sought to preserve the union, the struggle for pro-slavery territory caused a series of significant events.

Mississippi's Declaration of Secession: The South's Grievances

In many instances where southerners explain their secession from the Union, it is made clear in Mississippi's Declaration of Secession that the Union had the South pinned against the wall. The declaration reflects how the South perceived their position—akin to standing up to a bully. The South had their reasoning to back up their secession. The North kept encroaching on Southern interests, and eventually the South decided it had had enough. The Ordinance of 1787, the Compromise of 1820, and the acquisition of Mexican territory by the North were all instances where the South felt they received the "short end of the stick." These instances, brought up in the Mississippi Declaration, expressed the South's frustration at what they perceived as systematic Northern favoritism.

Jefferson Davis and the Defense of Southern Values

Among other southern explanations for dissolution is Jefferson Davis's eloquently written farewell address, where Davis's reasoning on the matter of Mississippi's secession seems almost completely justified. Davis invokes the Declaration of Independence to Mississippi's defense on the subject of slavery. As he states, "That Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made." By insinuating that the enslaved person was irrelevant to the Declaration's promise of free and equal men, Davis makes a claim that he anchors in history: the founding fathers who wrote the Declaration were themselves slaveholders. He presents this as a reasonable argument. It becomes evident why the South felt vexed by what they saw as unyielding Northern opposition, given the sincerity and conviction of Davis's claims. Davis's perspective revealed how many southerners authentically felt about their way of living. The fact that the Union and Confederacy could not reach agreement was, in Davis's view, the reason for the South's dissolution.

Conclusion: Slavery as the Root Cause of Disunion

All of these explanations for secession argue the validity of slavery from the South's perspective, in which that perspective is acutely directed toward the North. Secession and the adoption of a newly founded constitution add sufficient evidence to display that the South wanted nothing to do with the North's control over one of their fundamental ways of life. The South saw slavery as capable of spreading and as beneficial to society, while the North sought to restrict and ultimately destroy it—to end what the South viewed as a family-run business that had produced four billion dollars in profit. Territorial slavery provided the South's justification for secession because of how they perceived Black people and defended their system as natural and necessary to their survival.