A Slaveholders' Revolution

Confederates viewed the Civil War as a revolution, invoking 1776 to justify secession. Jefferson Davis sought to mobilize this heritage, but proslavery theorists like George Fitzhugh and John C. Calhoun repudiated Thomas Jefferson's egalitarian language. Fitzhugh dismissed the Declaration of Independence as 'exuberantly false,' while Calhoun denounced the idea that 'all men are born free and equal' as a dangerous error.