Did the South Really Win the Civil War?

When is a war over? Historians and politicians have assigned dates as to when wars began and ended. But if hostilities resumed and attitudes remained, what really ended? The Revolutionary War (1775–83) allegedly ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The British, however, refused to give up several forts in the Northwest Territories, and Americans violated the treaty by confiscating property from some who remained loyal to the Crown throughout the war. Jay’s Treaty in 1794 helped avert a new war by addressing several maritime and trade issues and allowed to keep America out of the war between Britain and France. Issues remained; arguably, the Revolutionary War wasn’t truly settled until after the War of 1812, ending in 1815.

I submit that the American Civil War (1861–1865) didn’t end on May 26, 1865, but it continues to this date. The war never ended, only the battlefields and armaments. The ongoing battles took place in the Halls of Congress and state legislatures, now moving to school boards and city councils. What is called the Lost Cause should be looked at in the light that the South has achieved several victories since 1865, forcing the nation to conform to its will. In several ways, the ultimate winner of the Civil War was the South. Don’t the monuments and statues of their soldiers and the preservation of Southern heritage tell us so?

When the Civil War ended, Southern states were occupied by federal troops. Those states had to agree to ratify the 13th Amendment, which, in theory, ended slavery. Keep in mind Texas didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment until 1870, Delaware in 1901, Kentucky in 1976, and Mississippi in 1995. There was also that exception to the 13th Amendment, which allowed enslavement for convicts.

“Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

So what brought Southern states to secede from the Union in the first place? It was slavery. When this nation was formed, the greatest fear of Southern States was that the less dependent Northern States would impose the end of slavery on them. The Constitution, while never explicitly mentioning slavery, promised that the international slave trade couldn’t be ended for twenty years. On the first day possible in 1808, Thomas Jefferson and Congress ended the international slave trade. Jefferson claimed it was about human rights.

“Such a law was needed to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights … which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe.” — Thomas Jefferson

In truth, it was a protectionist measure to prop up the value of domestic-bred slaves, of which states like Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware had an excess. That came about because of poor farming techniques and ruining the land by focusing on tobacco and not rotating crops. Ending the importation of slaves was about eliminating competition and never about ending slavery, which came almost 60 years later. The need for cheap labor was greater than ever, especially in the South. Plantation owners made up the deficit with policies of forced breeding and rape. Jefferson advised George Washington in a letter he could increase his profits by 4% annually by having his slave women produce a child every two years.

You may have heard that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery but was about “states rights.” In their articles of secession, the states said what was on their minds.

“ And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as a permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States. — Alabama

“An increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. . . .” — South Carolina

“WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression;” — Texas

“The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:” — Virginia

Thirteen Confederate states seceded from the Union with all of them, some in language more flowery than others, making apparent the preservation of slavery was the ultimate goal. While the Northern economy might have better long-term prospects with industrialization, the South’s economy was doing well, and they had a fair chance of persuading some of their larger customers, Britain and France, to join them in any upcoming battle against the North. Lincoln dashed those hopes with the Emancipation Proclamation, whose dual purpose was to disrupt the Southern economy and prevent Britain and France from siding with the Confederacy.

Lincoln’s initial goal wasn’t to end slavery but to preserve the Union. Once Southern states began seceding, ending slavery became the means to an end. The Emancipation Proclamation did not attempt to end slavery in states that didn’t secede.

Stipulating that the goal of the South was to preserve slavery and the terms of rejoining the Union forced them to agree to end slavery. That sounds like a resounding defeat of the Confederacy. Except that slavery by any other name continued right on in the form of the Black Codes, enacted by every Southern state now part of the Union. The Black Codes made criminals of free Blacks not already working in jobs recognized by whites. Penalties included sending them to work at plantations, sometimes the very places they were once enslaved.

After the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, former slaves (men) had the right to vote and the ability to do so under the protection of the troops still there to protect their safety. The three “Reconstruction Amendments,” passed between 1865 and 1870, were somewhat offset by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and lynchings, which weren’t officially recorded as such before 1865. The only thing standing between the formerly enslaved people and a return to total white supremacy was those troops.

By Currier and Ives — https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/98501907/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20179512

The dates of the Reconstruction Era are as fluid as the dates of wars. There is disagreement about whether it began with the Emancipation Proclamation or the end of the Civil War. However, it is clear that Reconstruction ended in 1877 when the South claimed a major victory in the continuing war between the states. During the contested presidential election in 1876, Democrats (the South) were one vote shy of winning the Electoral College, with three Southern states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) undecided. Democrats also won the popular vote which we all know by now doesn’t matter. The chances were good that Democrats would eventually come out on top, but they gave up that chance to have their president in a trade-off to have federal troops removed from the South. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and removed almost all Black representation when their terms ended in Congress and state governments if those previously elected officials weren’t forced to leave earlier.

Federal troops left in 1877, and the Posse Comitatus Act, put forward by Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as part of the deal, ensured that federal troops wouldn’t return to enforce Northern rules. Former Confederates took back power throughout the South and made their part of America great again. Congress had previously acted in 1871 to suppress the Klan with the enforcement acts. But the combination of White Citizens Councils, White Leagues, and later, the Red Shirts made up the slack. Black voting came to almost a standstill in some states. The Black Codes went away but were replaced by Jim Crow Laws, which were two steps removed from slavery but still close. It took until the 1960s to end Jim Crow on paper in the United States with the various Civil Rights Acts. In the South, that’s what they call winning.

Southern victories were not limited to restoring white privilege in the South. Jim Crow spread across the land, and along with it, monuments to Confederate heroes sprung up, many between 1890 and 1925. The states with the most members weren’t Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, but Indiana and Ohio, followed by Texas. A new wave of the Klan was spurred by their heroic portrayal in the movie Birth of a Nation, screened and positively reviewed by Woodrow Wilson in the White House. 30,000–35,000 men, women, and children of the Klan marched down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, D.C., to the cheers of many. Does that look like the South lost?

Harris & Ewing, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The second wave saw the inclusion of women who ultimately formed a Klan organization of their own. It wasn’t Congress that ended the second wave of the Klan, but the Great Depression combined with financial wrongdoing in Klaverns, heavy-handed leadership, internecine feuds, and abusive retaliations.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s resulted in a revitalized Klan. The slow imposition of desegregation in schools, combined with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, was too much. Lasting longer than the successful fifty-year attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade was the 70+ year attempt to erase Civil and Voting Rights. Activists believing in Southern values have successfully ended most affirmative action, are eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), eliminating the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and allowing the passage of hundreds of voter suppression laws.

We keep saying the South lost the war, but did they really? Slavery eventually ended for most people unless you count migrant labor, trafficked sex workers, and inmate labor still practiced in Mississippi, though they are no longer required to work longer than eight-hour days. The first measure of a lost war is ceded territory. The South hasn’t lost an inch and arguably has gained West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and most of Arizona.

They say the victors write history; well, who is writing the history of slavery, which now includes a list of the benefits and education slaves received? When did the forced breeding and rape of enslaved people become a “natural increase” when explaining the increase in domestic slave births. How many states have made it illegal for towns and counties to remove Confederate monuments? De facto segregation exists in many of the charter schools and public schools in areas as diverse as New York, California, and Mississippi. The Civil War is not only ongoing, but a clear winner has emerged. The South has risen again. The South won the war because they never stopped fighting it. For those fighting for better causes, there are lessons to be learned.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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