1850 Compromise

There are far more people than most could imagine who fervently believe that President Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator. They believe that he started the "War of Northern Aggression" that most of us call the Civil War. The argument is that the innocent South just wanted to follow the Constitution of the United States and be allowed to secede from the Union by applying their own States rights. This is widely believed by many who have been generationally indoctrinated with an emotional attachment to a false doctrine.

However, let's take a look at a two speeches that saved America from Civil War in 1850, eleven years earlier. We also see the speech of one of the strongest proponents of secession. Hear the words, hear the topic, hear the reality of why the conflict existed.

As Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky said in the Senate in 1850.

"In my opinion there is no right on the part of any or more states to secede from the Union. War and the dissolution of the Union are identical and inevitable, in my opinion. There can be a dissolution of the Union only be consent or by war. Consent no once can anticipate, from any ... See More existing state of things, is likely to be given; and war is the only alternative by which a dissolution could be accomplished....And such a war as it would be, following the dissolution of the Union! Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so ferocious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating... would rage with such violence....
I implore gentlemen, I adjure them, whether from South or North... to pause at the edge of the precipice, before the fearful and dangerous leap be taken into the yawning abyss below, from which none who ever take it shall return to safety."

From the John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, 1850.

"I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which ... See More divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever come under your consideration - How can the Union be preserved.?
What has endangered the Union?
To this question there can be but one answer, - the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States composing the Southern section of the Union. This discontent commenced with the agitation of the slavery question and has been increasing ever since...What has caused this widely diffused and almost universal discontent?
One of the causes is undoubtedly, to be traced to long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time...
As then, the North has the absolute control over the Government, it is manifest, that on all questions between it and the South, where there is a diversity of interests, the interests of the latter will be sacrificed to the former, however oppressive the effects may be; as the South possesses no means by which it can resist... See More, through the action of the Government. But if there was no question of vital importance to the South, in reference to which there was a diversity of views between the two sections, this state of things might be endured, without the hazard of destruction to the South. But this is not the fact. There is a question of vital importance to the Southern section, in reference to which the views and feelings of the two sections are as opposite and hostile as they can possibly be.
I refer to the relation between the two races in the Southern section, which constitutes a vital portion of her social organization. Every portion of the North entertains views and feelings more or less hostile to it... On the contrary, the Southern sections regards the relation as one which cannot be destroyed without subjecting the two races to the greatest calamity, and the section to poverty, desolation, and wretchedness; and accordingly they feel bound, by every consideration of interest and safety, to defend it."

The great Daniel Webster offered one of the most famous speeches in Senate history to a crowd that overflowed the chamber and galleries. Webster was long Clay's political foe, now joined Clay in an effort to save the Union. "I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American.... I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause." Webster threw his full political weight alongside Clay, going on to say, "Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility."

It is more than obvious by the words of these two men that the cause of the Civil War was not about State rights, it was not about anything but the topic of slavery, and slavery only.

These speeches were given more than a decade before the war, 11 years before Lincoln took office. Through Stephen Douglas and Henry Clay America averted a Civil War... See More in 1850 with the Compromise of 1850 over the ongoing question if slavery would be allowed in the new states being formed out of the land acquired from Mexico.

The defeated South created a fairy tale of half truths, and out right lies to assuage their obvious guilt. It was not about anything but slavery, it wasn't started by Lincoln.