The Real Factions of the War: Thoughts by Alexander H. Stephens, 1868

Even today, the Civil War is a tricky subject to navigate; using a birds-eye view, the War appears to be everything everyone says it was. For some, it was a war to eliminate slaver, for some it was a war for the Union, for some it was a war for Southern independence, for some it was an opportunity for plunder, but for some, it was a contest between those supporting the "federative" principle versus those supporting principles of consolidation.

The latter is the view of Alexander Stephens.

This post quotes from Stephens' two-volume work entitled, Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States.

August Glen-James, editor

It is a postulate, with many writers of this day, that the late War was the result of two opposing ideas, or principles, upon the subject of African Slavery. Between these, according to their theory, sprung the “irrepressible conflict,” in principle, which ended in the terrible conflict of arms. Those who assume this postulate, and so theorize upon it, are but superficial observers.

That the War had its origin in opposing principles, which, in their action upon the conduct of men, produced the ultimate collision of arms, may be assumed as an unquestionable fact. But the opposing principles which produced these results in physical action were of a very different character from those assumed in the postulate. They lay in the organic Structure of the Government of the States. The conflict in principle arose from different and opposing ideas as to the nature of what is known as the General Government. The contest was between those who held it to be strictly Federal in its character, and those who maintained that it was thoroughly National. It was a strife between the principles of Federation, on the one side, and Centralism, or Consolidation, on the other.

Slavery, so called, was but the question on which these antagonistic principles, which had been in conflict, from the beginning, on divers other questions, were finally brought into actual and active collision with each other on the field of battle.

[At this point, Stephens supported his claim by citing the anti-slavery credentials of Thomas Jefferson and others, both North and South, who opposed both slavery and “Centralism, or Consolidation.” Stephens recounted Missouri’s application for statehood wherein, according to Stephens, the “Centralists” in Congress proposed certain slavery conditions and restrictions that were opposed by the anti-centralists, not because they weren’t anti-slavery, but because Congress had no authority to make such demands and allowing it would creep into the centralization of power in the Federal government.]

It is the fashion of many writers of the day to class all who opposed the Consolidationists in this [i.e. Missouri], their first step, as well as all who opposed them in all their subsequent steps, on this question, with what they sale the Pro-Slavery Party. No greater injustice could be done any public men, and no greater violence be done to the truth of History, than such a classification. Their opposition to that measure, or kindred subsequent ones, sprung from no attachment to Slavery; but, as Jefferson’s, Pinkney’s and Clay’s, from their strong convictions that the Federal Government had no rightful or Constitutional control or jurisdiction over such questions; and that no such action, as that proposed upon them, could be taken by Congress without destroying the elementary and vital principles upon which the Government was founded.

By their acts, they did not identify themselves with the Pro-Slavery Party (for, in truth, no such Party had, at that time, or at any time in the History of the Country, any organized existence). They only identified themselves, or took position, with those who maintained the Federative character of the General Government.

In 1850, for instance, what greater injustice could be done any one, or what greater violence could be done the truth of History, than to charge Cass, Douglas, Clay, Webster and Fillmore, to say nothing of others, with being advocates of Slavery, or following in the lead of the Pro-Slavery Party, because of their support of what were called the adjustment measures of that year?

Or later still out of the million and a half, and more, of the votes cast, in the Northern States, in 1860, against Mr. Lincoln, how many, could it, with truth, be said, were in favor of Slavery, or even that legal subordination of the Black race to the White, which existed in the Southern States?

Perhaps, not one in ten thousand! It was a subject, with which, they were thoroughly convinced, they had nothing to do, and could have nothing to do, under the terms of the Union, by which the States were Confederated, except to cary out, and faithfully perform, all the obligations of the Constitutional Compact, in regard to it.

They simply arrayed themselves against that Party which had virtually hoisted the banner of Consolidation. The contest, so commenced, which ended in the War, was, indeed, a contest between opposing principles; but not such as bone upon the policy or impolicy of African Subordination. They were principles deeply underlying all considerations of that sort. They involved the very nature and organic Structure of the Government itself. The conflict, on this question of Slavery, in the Federal Councils, from the beginning, was not a contest between the advocates or opponents of that peculiar Institution, but a contest, as stated before, between the supporters of a strictly Federative Government, on the one side, and a thoroughly National one, on the other.