Dec. 20 marks the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, which ignited the Civil War — and so this year, Dec. 20 starts the sesquicentennial observance.
There were a few Civil War battles in the West — most notably at Glorietta Pass east of Santa Fe, where an invading Confederate Army from Texas was defeated — but most of the fighting was to the east.
Even so, you could argue that the Civil War was fought over the West. It was the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency which provoked the South to secession. Lincoln had pledged not to interfere with slavery in states where it was legal.
But he, and his new Republican Party, had also pledged to oppose slavery in the territories — that is, our part of the world. The South feared loss of political power if western territories became free states, and thus tried to secede, with Lincoln assembling armies to put down the rebellion.
We’re in for four years of Civil War commemoration, and by and large that’s a good thing, especially if you’re a history buff like me. However, there are Confederate apologists who insist the war was fought over tariffs, self-determination, states’ rights, or the differences between a traditional agrarian economy and an emerging industrial system, or just about anything except slavery.
But it was slavery that drove secession, as evidenced by the “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union,” adopted on Dec. 24, 1860.
Read it carefully. You’ll find no mention of tariffs or states’ rights. You will read a lot about how northern states were reluctant to return escaped slaves to the South, and how Southerners wanted to take their slaves to the territories.
Ed Quillen is a freelance writer in Salida, Colorado.
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