Skip Navigation
Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Progress

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Dec 20 2010, 9:00 AM ET Comment

From South Carolina's daily The State:

The language of the S.C. Declaration is so straightforward, so unambiguous that it is difficult to comprehend that there ever could have been any disagreement over what drove South Carolina to secede. So before any more breath is wasted in arguing about just what our state will be commemorating on Monday, we are reprinting the Declaration on this page. We would urge anyone who doubts that our state seceded in order to preserve slavery -- or, for that matter, anyone who has come to accept the fiction that slavery was merely one of several cumulative causes -- to read this document. 

What we found most striking in rereading the Declaration was the complete absence of any other causes. After laying out the argument that the states retained a right to secede if the Union did not fulfill its constitutional and contractual obligations, the document cited the one failing of the United States: its refusal to enforce the constitutional provision requiring states to return escaped slaves to their owners. "This stipulation was so material to the compact," the document declares, "that without it that compact would not have been made." 

Good to see this. We should confuse the Neo-Confederates with "The South."


Presented by

More at The Atlantic

Oops! Now You Can Track the Tweets Politicians Tried to Delete Now You Can Track the Tweets Politicians Tried to Delete
How 'Natural' Is Stevia? How 'Natural' Is Stevia?
A Blow, but a Softer One, to the Defense of Marriage Act A Blow to the Defense of Marriage Act
Why Do Asian Americans Have the Worst Long-Term Unemployment? Why Asian-Americans Have the Worst Long-Term Joblessness
Video of the Day: An Illinois Lawmaker's Epic Freak-Out Watch This: An Illinois Lawmaker's Epic Freak-Out

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register.
blog comments powered by Disqus
View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

The Unreal World

May 31, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

Ta-Nehisi Coates
from the Magazine

Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an Atlantic senior editor.

Fade to White

A filmmaker maps Austin’s shifting ethnic landscape.

The Legacy of Malcolm X

Why his vision lives on in Barack Obama