Talking about the Confederate flag and a friend dropped this on me
No part of the Civil War was about slavery...winners write the history books, and they write them to show themselves in the best possible light.
The south had outlawed, under states rights, slavery before the war ever started...by 1860, every state that joined the Confederacy had declared that only current slaves were slaves...their offspring were free, no more trade or sales in slaves, no more importation, no more indentures sold.
Being free takes experience and practice, as there is a LOT involved in being an unfettered man...the South understood this, and arranged to introduce a population of free blacks that understood to their core what "free" meant, yet didn't dump a ton of people into society and the economy with no practice at being free or exercising self-responsibility.
The form of "liberation" the Emancipation Proclamation took is the root cause for much of our current racial tension and conflict.
I would guess this is pretty far off base but may have some truths in there. Can you clarify a bit?
This is complete and (hilariously) utter hogwash. Your friend is talking out his ass. For starters, I would direct you to this post I recently wrote which addresses how central to the Confederacy slavery was - the literal cornerstone as Alexander Stephens put it.
Now, as for this specific claim, I'll quote a few selections from the Confederate Constitution.
For starters, yes, foreign import of slaves was banned under Article 1, Sec. 9(1) (except from the US), but this is no change from the laws of the United States, which had banned importation in 1808. So that isn't some amazing revelation.
When we get to Sec. 9(4), well, you friends argument gets hilariously wrong:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
As you can see here, it is literally written into the CSA Constitution that the institution of slavery can not be denied or impaired, which is further reinforced later on in Article 4 Sec. 2(1):
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
and then in Sec. 3(3):
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates [sic]; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
So as you can see, the CSA pretty much just did a copy-paste job of the USA Constitution, with the only significant changes being those which explicitly granted major protections to the institution of slavery, protections which quite clearly make it impossible for your friends claims of "their offspring were free, no more trade or sales in slaves, no more importation, no more indentures sold." The only thing he is correct about is importation, but the international slave trade had been illegal for half a century, so that says nothing about the moral righteousness of the Confederacy, and more that they didn't want to really piss off countries like the UK who enforced that matter.