Literature Study GuidesThe Declaration Of Causes Of Seceding States

The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States | Study Guide

Government of South Carolina

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Course Hero. "The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States Study Guide." Course Hero. 16 Aug. 2019. Web. 29 Sep. 2023. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Declaration-of-Causes-of-Seceding-States/>.

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Course Hero. (2019, August 16). The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States Study Guide. In Course Hero. Retrieved September 29, 2023, from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Declaration-of-Causes-of-Seceding-States/

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Course Hero. "The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States Study Guide." August 16, 2019. Accessed September 29, 2023. https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Declaration-of-Causes-of-Seceding-States/.

Footnote

Course Hero, "The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States Study Guide," August 16, 2019, accessed September 29, 2023, https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Declaration-of-Causes-of-Seceding-States/.

Overview

Author

Government of South Carolina

Year Ratified

1860–61

Type

Primary Source

Genre

History

At a Glance

The Declaration of Causes is a combination of four documents, drafted by delegations in Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas during the winter of 1860–61.
These documents offer a firsthand account of the reasons for the South's decision to secede from the Union, providing insights into the causes of the Civil War.
Slavery and what the South assumed was the North's interest in ending slavery were chief among those causes.
These documents served as a rallying cry for other Southern states as they debated secession; they were also intended to drum up international support for the proslavery cause.
The documents make clear that the election in 1860 of the antislavery Republican Party candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to the presidency was the instigating event for secession.
The documents' authors repeatedly describe enslaved African Americans as property, and one of their major complaints was the Northern states' increasing resistance to returning enslaved fugitives to the South.
In its defense of slavery, the Declaration of Causes paints African Americans as a dependent race, happy with their servile station and reliant on the benevolence of white people.
Finally, the documents are constructed around the premise that the United States is a voluntary collection of sovereign governments, with each state government having the authority to withdraw from the Union at a time of its choosing.

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