What Should a First-Time Visitor to America Read?

DiogenesLamp: "What happens to an engine that is running under a load if you cut the fuel supply to it by some amount?
It stalls and loses speed, if it does not falter and stop.
That is what was going to happen to New York in 1861 without a war.
Think of it as a money engine that derives a significant portion of it's fuel from trade."

A false analogy leading to mistaken conclusion.
That's because in, let's say, March 1861, the new Confederacy was outnumbered by the Union voters, 10 to 1, meaning the potential drop in demand for US imports was just 10%.
Yes, the loss of cotton exports could reduce total United States exports, theoretically, by 50%, but New York would see, at most 1/3 of that, since the vast majority of US cotton shipped directly from Southern cities like New Orleans & Mobile.

But what about all those other "Southern products"?
Well, the reduction in all so-called "Southern products" in 1861 was $163 million vs. 1860, but, $160 million of that was just cotton!
Non-cotton "Southern products" net-net fell only $3 million.
And outside the South, Union exports rose $61 million in 1861.
Point is: even as early as 1861 the Union in general and New York specifically was quickly adjusting and adapting to the loss of Confederate cotton.
So there's no reason to think it would have ever permanently crippled a city as dynamic as New York.

DiogenesLamp: "Slavery was eventually going to die of natural causes, but the remnants of the North's war on the South, and the precedents it established, have lingered much longer than slavery ever would have."

No, that's totally misconceived.
So see why, suppose a historical hypothetical: that secession was declared in 1861 after the reelection of President Buchanan, and suppose Democrat Buchanan had allowed the Confederacy to "depart in peace" taking with it what they wanted, i.e., Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona & even California.
Then let's suppose that Confederate military prowess was spent on, not fighting the Union, but on what were then called "filibusters" -- adventures in the Caribbean, Central & South America to establish new lands for American slavery.
And let's assume that with Confederate government backing, these new "filibusters" were highly successful.
Now look at hypothetical maps of the North America and the world.:

Given this 19th century victory of slavery and empires, what conceivable pressures -- economic, social, political, etc. pressures -- would ever force nations to abolition?

Why do you show so much British encroachment into the upper eastern and western lands of the USA in this scenario?

x: "We 'subjugated unwilling populaces' when we defeated Germany and Japan.
That didn't make it wrong."

Furthermore, throughout the South votes from Southern Unionists plus freed slaves formed local & regional majorities, reducing claims of alleged "subjugated unwilling populaces" a fraud & sham.

DiogenesLamp: " 'States Rights' cannot be extended to something explicitly prohibited by the US Constitution.
The states voluntarily gave up that particular right by ratifying the Constitution as it was written.
You seem to have a cognitive dissonance on this point."

No "cognitive dissonance" here, since Southern states agreed in the 1850 Compromise to move responsibility for fugitive slaves from state to Federal government.
And since Southerners ran the Federal government throughout the 1850s, it was their responsibility to override any particular state laws they disliked.

The apparent fact that they didn't tells us fugitive slaves were not really the major issue they were purported in 1861 to have been.
Indeed the very states which howled loudest about it in their "Reasons for Secession" were, in fact, least troubled by it, since their own fugitives must travel through several slave-catching states before reaching any kind of safety in the North or Canada.

DiogenesLamp: "The hole in your theory is the fact that they would still have slavery if they *didn't* secede.
It's funny how you keep zooming right past that without acknowledging that the Union was going to keep legal slavery for at least 40 more years."

And yet protecting slavery was the number one reason, when not the only reason, given by secessionists themselves in their "Reasons for Secession" documents.

Yet John Calhoun felt states rights allowed them to ignore any federal law they saw fit to blow off! But only when that benefitted the South of course.

DiogenesLamp: "Last year I found a source that put it at 40% of the total.
I think BroJoeK is the one who initially linked to it, and I found that further down past the point he wanted us to read.
It was an article that focused mainly on New Orleans and how New York had secured virtually every cotton contract that came available."

Your memory is faulty, though 40% could easily be the combined values of shipping, warehousing, commissions, insurance, interest on debts, luxury imports plus a few wild nights on the town in the Big Apple.
Indeed, that last may be, all by itself, a reason why Charleston SC was never destined to match New York as a favorite of mariners.

Regardless, your repeated claim that all or most of Southern cotton shipped through New York is simply bogus, it didn't.
Half shipped from New Orleans and much of the rest from other Southern ports.
As for New York somehow "tying up" cotton contracts, you have no idea how much cotton was owned by residents of which cities or states or foreign countries.
That's pure speculation.

I don’t assume anything. I wanted to make sure I understood what you asserted, and allowed you the chance to rebut.

Now here’s where logic seems to break down. You and DiogenesLamp seem to believe that every dollar exported in Southern goods was returned penny for penny with imported goods one hundred percent paid by Southerners. This seems dubious at best.

For this to be true, every ship headed overseas would have carry only Southern produced goods, mostly cotton. There could be no mix of cotton and Northern grain or other foodstuffs in the holds. Since exports would be based on orders placed from foreign agents, then foreign needs would dictate the shipment. XYZ Company needing so much of this and so much of that might reasonably order different items at one times just as a retail store does today.

The image of segregation by region suggests the memory of “colored” drinking fountains during Jim Crow. One could imagine port signage reading Northern goods this way, Southern to the other.

Now, even if shipping WAS conducted this way, your assertion assumes that every plantation owner was in the import/export business. And IF they were, that every good they brought back home was destined for Southern markets. By simple mathematics then the demand for foreign goods in the South would have to about three times that of Northern residents. Since on average Southerners were richer, but the population was more stratified, this simply could not be.

The plain fact is you have no numbers for who paid tariffs, and as has been shown many times before, tariffs were in 1860. The Morell Tariff was passed AFTER the Southerners pulled out of Congress.

I don’t say “every”. I note that the overwhelming majority of exports were from the South. In the last decade or so before he war Midwestern grain started to become a significant export. The rest of the exports from the US other than Southern cash crops weren’t very significant.

Something like 60% of US exports were cotton. Yes, it was that important. Southern Cotton went either to Northern textile mills or was exported - most was exported. The South at the time had relatively few textile mills.

Not every manufactured good they bought was destined for Southern markets. They arrived in port and sold to anybody who wanted to buy. We know who did the exporting and those were overwhelmingly the same ones who did the importing. The Morrill tariff was certain to pass the Senate. All that was necessary was to pick off a Senator or two. That could be accomplished with a few payoffs to somebody’s local industry by adding something to the list of goods that would be subject to tariffs or by agreeing to do some infrastructure project in somebody’s state with federal money in exchange for their vote on the tariff, etc.

I think some people on one side preferred hyperbole to facts. They also wanted foreigners not to think they were fighting to preserve slavery, which had been outlawed in nearly every Christian country at the time.

Slavery had been banned in most but certainly not all of the Western world by that time and many had only banned it comparatively recently. President Davis, with the support of the Confederate Congress, empowered his ambassador with plenipotentiary powers....meaning he could commit the CSA to a treaty to emancipate the slaves in exchange for British and French military aid. He had always maintained that the Southern states were not fighting over slavery. The US Congress similarly passed a resolution early on saying they were not fighting over slavery either.

Why do you suppose they felt high tariffs were needed on imported manufactured goods brought in from England, and not needed on agricultural goods (mostly cotton) produced in the South?

Because Britain had industrialized first and France second. They had economies of scale already. Northern manufacturers had a tough time competing against them. So they constantly screamed for tariffs. The Southern states were the most efficient cotton producers in the world at that time and were pretty efficient at producing other needed cash crops like rice, indigo, tobacco and Sugar from sugar cane. There weren’t hardly any places that were more efficient than the Southern states at producing these goods. They did not need tariff protection and were major exporters.

So you can’t claim that Southerners paid for the vast bulk of trariffs then. Just as I thought.

The Morrill Tariff had already been voted down in 1860. The Democrats still held the Senate in 1861. It’s really irrelevant to any claims to secession.

I’ve never claimed that the Union went into the Civil War to abolish slavery. It’s patently absurd to say the South went in for any other reason other than preserving it.

So you can’t claim that Southerners paid for the vast bulk of trariffs then. Just as I thought.

The Morrill Tariff had already been voted down in 1860. The Democrats still held the Senate in 1861. It’s really irrelevant to any claims to secession.

Of course I can because they did. This was not in dispute. Read what everybody at the time said about it.

The Morrill tariff had already passed the House in 1860. It was initially rejected in the Senate but the vote was close. It was clear with a little effort it was going to pass. Tariffs were one of the really key issues that lead the Southern states to secede.

I’ve never claimed that the Union went into the Civil War to abolish slavery. It’s patently absurd to say the South went in for any other reason other than preserving it.

No its not. Its patently absurd to say the South went in order to preserve it when they could have preserved it simply by staying in....or by accepting the North’s Slavery Forever constitutional amendment.

FLT-bird: "Uhh pure BS.
Does this sound like “provisions” to you????
No the Fox expedition was no attempt to “provision” a “starving” garrison.
It was exactly what abe said it was, a flagrant and deliberate attempt to provoke war and it worked very well."

Actually, "abe" said it was a resupply mission only, and since he gave the appropriate orders, I see no reason to doubt that.
Of course I fully "get" that you must, must, must have "abe" as the villain, but the only way you can get there is to lie about him.

But for Lost Cause mythologizers, that's no problem, right?

FLT-bird: "When a sovereign state secedes, all property within their sovereign territory can be claimed by them under Eminent Domain."

An argument you've posted before, but it was ridiculous then and still is.
Here's why: no such legal process as "eminent domain" was ever followed, or said to be necessary by secessionists themselves.
So you are merely making excuses for people who didn't think such excuses needed.

The fact remains there's no law on any book anywhere in the world which says a government's property suddenly becomes not it's property just because some locals declare their secession.
Most specifically, the US Constitution gives Congress and nobody else authority to dispose of US government property.

So challenging such authority is, by definition, law breaking and, in the case of 1861 secessionists they were acts of war against the United States.

FLT-bird: "Nah. I had it right.
You just can’t deal with facts that are inconvenient for your dogma."

But you have no argument because you have no facts, none.

FLT-bird: "Virginia voting initially not to secede is not evidence that there was no injury or oppression - merely that they did not feel it sufficient to warrant secession..."

Exactly, you said it:insufficient to warrant secession.
Only war itself was sufficient for Virginians, and that's why Davis took his first opportunity to give it to them.

FLT-bird: "The provocations for war came from Lincoln when he chose to send a heavily armed flotilla into South Carolina’s territorial waters to reinforce some squatters illegally occupying some of South Carolina’s sovereign territory."

Constitutionally, no Federal property could be "sovereign territory" until Congress approved, which it did not.
As for "provocations" Confederate seizures of Federal properties were all provocations.
But when Jefferson Davis assaulted Fort Sumter militarily, that was not a "provocation", it was an act of war, pure & simple.

FLT-bird: "Ah but there was.
Lincoln knew what he was doing, knew it would start a war and that was what he wanted."

No, the facts say otherwise.
Lincoln believed that Capt. Fox's plan had a reasonable chance of success, meaning he could resupply Fort Sumter and leave without further incident.
Lincoln did not believe that war over Sumter was inevitable.

FLT-bird: "As the Providence Daily Post wrote on April 13, 1861, 'Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor' by reprovisioning Fort Sumter."

Assuming your quote is legit, it's still pure speculation.
Serious historians of the time do not attribute such motives to Lincoln, but portray him as trying to find a way to resupply Fort Sumter without starting war.
Capt. Fox's plan was the best he could do.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln’s personal secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, clearly stated after the war that Lincoln successfully duped the Confederates into firing on Fort Sumter"

Sure, long after the fact, memories fade and are overlapped with subsequent events.
The fact is there was no "duping" involved, that's why Lincoln informed Governor Pickens in advance.
It made Jefferson Davis' decision to launch a military assault on Fort Sumter a fully informed decision, for which Davis and Davis alone bears full responsibility.

FLT-bird: "yet another lie on your part.
Slavery provided the original 7 seceding states (well 4 really since only 4 issued declarations of causes) the legal basis for saying the Northern states had violated the compact "

Sorry, FRiend, but all the lies are coming from our Lost Cause mythologizers.
We're just here to present the facts.

The fact is those four "Reasons for Secession" documents listed far more than just fugitive slave laws, they listed every issue related to slavery, whether constitutional or not.
The fact that fugitive slaves are covered in the Constitution was coincidental to the Reasons for Secession.
Consider, this section of South Carolina's "Reasons for Secession":

"Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and
have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution;
they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery;
they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.
They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government."

Point is: South Carolina and other "Reasons for Secession" documents did not limit themselves to the Constitutional matter of Fugitive Slaves, but rather, in the manner of a highly agitated spouse, threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at her former partner.

FLT-bird: "Rhett said he would support secession on the grounds of the tariff and unequal federal expenditures...but its inconvenient for you to admit that. "

No, not at all.
First of all, so far as I can tell, Rhett's address was not a legal document, but more along the lines of an editorial or advertising brochure -- it represented his opinions but not necessarily official Confederate positions.
Regardless, it does indeed mention issues other than slavery, and even puts them chronologically ahead of slavery.
But when it came right down to it, even for Rhett, the major focus was still (by two to one) issues relating to slavery.

Nothing at all "inconvenient" about that.

FLT-bird: "This is a complete pile of BS.
Obviously the South who were in the minority did not control things in Washington DC or the tariff would have been way way lower all along and there would not have been much by way of federal expenditures for internal improvements and corporate subsidies."

Sorry, but regardless of how often you repeat it, it's still a total lie, always was.
Here's the real truth of this matter: politically speaking, there is no such thing as "the South", never was.
"The South" always was a multitude of different regions and interests -- and not just Deep South, Upper South & Border South, but also Eastern Seaboard, Appalachian Mountains, Cotton South, Mississippi River valley, East Texas lowlands, Louisiana bayou, Ozark Mountains, etc., etc...
Each region elects representatives with somewhat different attitudes, even over such vital matters in 1860 as slavery.
You yourself quoted (or mis-quoted, I don't know which) Missouri Senator Benton who was, of all things, a Southern Democrat abolitionist!
And if Southerners could disagree on slavery, then they could certainly disagree on such questions as the best tariff rates.
And the best example of that, I'll repeat, is the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which was originally supported by both future President Jackson and Vice President Calhoun (and opposed by New Englanders).
Yes, later Calhoun strongly objected, but the fact is that without his initial support, it could not have passed.

So the tariff was greatly increased by some Southerners and then slowly lowered back down by others.
It only proves the Southerners ruled Washington, DC, even when they disagreed with each other.

FLT-bird: "The similarity was striking.
The British offered the colonies seats in the British parliament.
Its just that it would not have been enough for them to be able to protect themselves "

But no such offer was ever made.
At most it was discussed informally by some Brits sympathetic to American colonists, but the idea was certainly never approved in Parliament or voted on by any Americans.
It is therefore nothing more than somebody's historical wet-dream.
Never happened.

FLT-bird: "How you think anybody is going to but this BS you spew is beyond me.
Southern Democrats did not control the President.
Buchanan was a Pennsylvanian."

Seriously, FRiend, you've been victimized by Lost Cause mythology and so have no real grasp on actual history.
President Buchanan was a Northern Doughfaced Democrat, elected in 1856 by the Solid South in alliance with a minority of Northern Democrats.
Buchanan was highly sympathetic to slavery and the South and was instrumental behind the scenes in the Supreme Court's radical Dred Scott decision.

In late 1860 and early 1861 Buchanan did nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- to slow or stop secession & Confederacy.
The South could not have a better friend than Buchanan, though in the end Buchanan could not bring himself to publically support the Confederacy, he did nothing to stop it.

Presidential election of 1856, when the South still had many friends up North.

FLT-bird quoting: "...free states increased their majority from twenty-three seats in 1830 to twenty-nine seats by 1840.
The disparity expressed in total seats was 149 representatives from the free states to 88 from the slave states.” (John Niven..."

Totally irrelevant!
What matters is that Southern Democrats remained in control of the majority Democrat party until secession in 1861.
They did this with support from Northern allies like President Buchanan, allies they lost when they declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.

FLT-bird quoting: "the Democrats in 1854 suffered grave reversals.
Perhaps most stunning was the plurality the Republicans achieved in the new House of Representatives, where they were to hold 108 seats to 83 for the Democrats and 43 for the Know-Nothings. Indeed that new House, after two months of debate, would elect a Republican Speaker. . . "

Sure, one of those very rare occasions when Democrats lost control of one house of Congress.
They still ruled the Senate, Presidency, Supreme Court and the army with Jefferson Davis the Secretary of War!

And by 1856 Democrats were back in control of both houses of Congress, the Presidency, Supreme Court and military.
So their very brief sojourn in the minority "woods" of one house could not possibly seriously reduce the Democrats iron grip over Washington, DC.

FLT-bird quoting: "The election of 1858. . . . Southern Democrats . . . were no longer able to shape public policy. . . .” (Catton, editor..."

Oh, my goodness, those pooooor dear snowflake babies, doesn't your heart just cry out in anguish for those Democrats who, having grown totally accustomed to rule with an iron fist over Washington, DC, now suddenly in 1858 found themselves once again kicked out of power in one house of Congress!!
Now in 1859 they must console their poooor hearts with control over only the US Senate, the Presidency, Supreme Court and military.
Oh, the pooooor snowflakes, how could they ever learn to get along with those evil deplorable, irredeemable, basket of bitter clinging REPUBLICANS!!

Doesn't your heart just cry out in sympathy?
I know mind does.
I know what Democrats in 1859 should do too: RESIST, and attack the collusion of those deplorable Republicans with, with... with... oh, who did they collude with??? I know, it must have been Russians!

</sarcasm>

FLT-bird: "Yes you obfuscate..."

False.

FLT-bird: "Yes the legal case was that the Northern states had violated the compact by refusing to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution."

False.
When you really look at what they wrote, they were all over the map.
It wasn't just a simple case of saying "fugitive slave laws", rather they dredged up and threw out every complaint they ever had, regardless of how valid, but all about slavery.

So obfuscate that all you wish, but it's still true.

FLT-bird: "The northern states had been agitating against the fugitive slave clause and its enforcement more and more as time went on and had passed state laws forbidding cooperating with the feds - kinda like Commiefornia’s “Sanctuary state” laws."

Right, and just as with "Commiefornia's" sanctuary laws, constitutionally Federal law, ahem, trumps state laws.
But Federal laws must be enforced, and if the regime in Washington won't do it, then states run wild, which is what happened then and is happening now.
But who's to blame?
Throughout the 1850s Democrats ruled over Washington, DC, and Southerners ruled the Democrats.
They enforced what they wanted to enforce.
We have to believe, if they were truly concerned about it, they would have enforced their own laws.
So why didn't they?
Obviously, it wasn't that big a deal for them, then.

FLT-bird: "It is up to each state to determine when its injury or oppression rises to a level sufficient to warrant secession."

No it isn't.

FLT-bird: "That is what it is to be sovereign."

They gave up absolute sovereignty on ratifying the US Constitution.

FLT-bird: "They hold power in their own right and can decide what to do on their own without requiring some kind of permission slip from others."

Rubbish.

FLT-bird: "They felt it necessary in 1860-61 and that’s enough."

Nonsense.

FLT-bird: "They had nothing to prove to anybody else when it came to choosing to exercise their sovereign rights."

Pure fantasy.

FLT-bird: "Of course we all know what changed was the certainty that the Morill Tariff would pass which it did and was signed by Buchanan 2 days before Lincoln took office."

Horse feathers.
When South Carolinians met in November & December 1860 to decide on secession, their fear was "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans, not what percentage some new tariff might be.
Really, you should read some real history some day.

FLT-bird: "Oh it was completely accurate.
The supposedly 'advantageous' 17% Walker Tariff was going to be replaced by the Morrill Tariff which would double tariff rates (they were eventually tripled). "

Wrong again.
The original Morrill tariff proposal, which was defeated by Southern Democrats in 1860, called for a modest increase back to average levels of years past.
It was certainly nothing remotely close to the levels eventually forced on it by Civil War.
But Fire Eaters destroyed the national Democrat party at their conventions in 1860 and the results included victory for the minority Republicans.
As a result, Democrats in the 1861 Congress could not defeat Morrill by themselves, but that was irrelevant when secession states walked out giving Republicans free hand.
Faced with potential Civil War, the final Morrill Tariff was much higher than it would be had Southern Democrats stuck around to defend their own interests.

FLT-bird: "Federal expenditures had long favored the Northern states as admitted by Buchanan and numerous Northern newspapers and as complained about bitterly for many years by Southerners.
So Rhett’s statement was spot on."

False, because regardless of how often repeated, there still are no actual facts to support such claims.
The facts we do have say otherwise, and logic tells us that Congress must, long term, spend its money roughly in proportion to its constituents.

FLT-bird: "Are you trying to deny that various Northern states passed legislation forbidding cooperation with federal authorities as they tried to recapture escaped slaves and that Northerners engaged multiple times in mob violence to impede federal agents - which state authorities did nothing to stop? "

No, I'm saying constitutionally Federal law, ahem, trumps state laws, but the Feds must still enforce their own rules.
If Feds don't enforce then states run wild, which is what we saw in the 1850s and see again today.

But I'm also saying that alleged concerns about Fugitive Slave law violations were grossly exaggerated by secessionists in 1861 because when they had the opportunity to actually do something about it, they did nothing much.

FLT-bird: "And your claims that the minority Southerners controlled the Federal government is nothing but pure fantasy."

And your claims that the majority Southerners in the majority Democrat party did not control the Federal government are nothing but pure fantasy.

FLT-bird: "Georgia’s case like South Carolina’s did not depend on how many slaves the Northern states prevented the feds from capturing and returning - but that they had willfully and repeatedly done so in violation of the Constitution."

Irrelevant once the 1850 Compromise transferred responsibility for Fugitive Slave law enforcement to the Southern dominated Feds.

FLT-bird: "You just ASSUME Northern Democrats would automatically kowtow to Southern Democrats and do whatever they were told.
That is patently absurd."

Well, "kowtow" is a pretty strong word, but there were still many Northern Doughfaces left, including President Buchanan.
Yes, it certainly was possible Southerners might need to learn more diplomatic skills, instead of just cracking the whip over their Northern Democrat allies.

So what do you think, was there any chance they could do that?

FLT-bird: "The Walker Tariff did reduce rates after the Tariff of Abominations.
It was part of the compromise that ended the Nullification Crisis in the 1830s. "

But there were several new tariffs and many adjustments between 1830 and 1861 and the net results were a steadily falling overall rate.
Note here the falling rates between 1830 and 1861:

FLT-bird: "That was about to end as the Morrill Tariff had already passed the House in May of 1860 and was sure to pass the Senate..."

But Morrill absolutely could not pass the Senate in 1860, only passed in 1861 after Democrats seceded & walked out.
Furthermore, the blame for Democrat election losses in 1860 belongs solely on Democrats themselves, specifically Southern Fire Eaters who broke up the national Democrat party over slavery, thus turning the election over to minority Republicans.

So you see, once again, it was all about slavery.

FLT-bird: " Everybody could see a doubling of the rates at least was right around the corner. Southerners understood all too well what that would mean for their economy having seen how damaging the Tariff of Abominations had been a generation earlier."

Utter rubbish, since the original Morrill increases were quite modest, simply returned tariffs to their levels of, say, 1850.
Drastic increases only became possible and necessary after secession and looming Civil War.

FLT-bird: "Northern special interests had used slavery as a wedge issue to convince the Midwest to go along with their huge tariff hike."

More nonsense, since Morrill was intended to protect US manufacturing of which there was already a huge amount in the Midwest.
Slavery had nothing to do with it.

FLT-bird: "They also promised lavish subsidies for railroad construction and other internal improvements in the Midwest that would help defray the damage that would be done to Midwestern grain exporters."

Whatever subsidies might or might not have been available would also go to Southern interests had they been there to defend themselves.
But they walked out.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln had vigorously lobbied for the Morrill Tariff, telling a Pittsburgh, Pa. audience two weeks before his inauguration that no other issue, none, was more important."

Right, because Lincoln was a Republican and like the Whigs before them, Republicans believed in protecting & promoting US manufacturers.
Indeed, in more recent years we Republicans sort of lost our way on this subject, got intellectually seduced by a bunch of Democrat nonsense, I'd think.

Fortunately, now we have a leader in the tradition of Lincoln who intends ot make America great again by putting Americans first again.

What do you think, FLT-bird, good idea?

FLT-bird: "Your notion that Southerners could just snap their fingers and control what Northern Democrats did and how they voted is simply comical and bears no relation to reality."

Of course you're right about that, especially as the years wore on, Southern Democrats needed to learn more & more diplomatic behavior, to more schmooze their Northern Doughfaced Democrat allies, as opposed to just cracking the whip over them, as they had in years past.

But sill, diplomacy... you know, the art of the deal... shouldn't have been that hard for them, should it?

FLT-bird: "Refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution was merely the legal means for saying the Northern states violated the compact - it was not what the real motivation of Southerners was. "

So you keep repeating, over & over & over again, but still doesn't make it true.
In fact, all you're really doing here is projecting your own thoughts back onto 1860 Deep South Fire Eaters.
So I'd suggest that you have no real idea what they thought, or why, but you insist it can't be what they said at the time, because that doesn't help you defend them today, right?

FLT-bird: "The reason the Republicans wanted to bar slavery from new territories was that they were locked in a power struggle with the Southern states over federal economic policy and over the relationship between the federal and the state governments. "

Total complete BS, for which you have no evidence except your own mental state.
Your own loathing for those deplorable, irredeemable Republicans simply prevents you from having realistic ideas about us.
In your mind it's all just seething darkness and hatred, but the reality is far, far different.
I'm just sorry FLT-bird can never see it.

FLT-bird quoting: "“No sir….the mask is off, the purpose is avowed…It is a struggle for political power.” Jefferson Davis 1848"

Which only shows that Davis could be as sick in the head as FLT-bird.
That's too bad.

FLT-bird quoting: "It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement.
It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. "

I would first question if this quote is even legit, because its language sounds "off".
But also notice that Davis says nothing about wanting Northern type industry in the South.
What he wants instead is to be free of alleged Northern "aggrandizement".

Davis' problem is that there's no real evidence to demonstrate how "Northerners" were in fact "aggrandizing".

FLT-bird: "Oh and let’s not “whitewash” things here.....Republicans not only did not want slaves entering the territories...they also did not want free Blacks either. Just read the original state constitutions for Kansas, Oregon, etc etc."

Total rubbish because in fact there were as many freed-blacks in the North as in the South -- over 200,000 each, nearly 500,000 total.
Northern states of New York and Pennsylvania had over 50,000 each as did Southern states Maryland & Virginia.
Of course, some states, both North and South had very few freed-blacks -- Mississippi & Texas had fewer than 1,000 each, as did New Hampshire & Vermont.

But generalizations such as yours here are simply wrong.

FLT-bird: "The Senate was the South’s last line of defense and they had just barely managed to block the Morrill Tarrif in 1860 but all it was going to take was a little log rolling to flip a Senator or two.
It was sure to pass and everyone knew it. "

But only because Fire Eaters like your friend Rhett destroyed the national Democrat party in 1860, giving the minority Republicans a victory.
Had Democrats remained united in 1860 they might well have forced a compromise more to their liking in 1861.

FLT-bird: "There wasn’t going to be a compromise.
They were just going to throw a bone to a Senator or two..."

Because your Fire Eater buddies destroyed the Democrat party in the 1860 election, leaving them in a minority seemingly too weak to negotiate a compromise to their own liking.
You just can't blame Republicans for what Democrats did to themselves, FRiend.

FLT-bird: "You clearly do since you tried to take all kinds of lame shots at Lee."

Ha! Not "lame shots", just the facts, shall we review?

Lee was assigned to protect Texas against Indians.
He failed.
Lee was assigned to defend West Virginia against George McClellan (!!).
He failed.
Lee was assigned to protect Fort Polaski in Georgia against a Union combined army-navy assault.
He failed.
Lee was assigned to protect Virginia against Grant.
He failed.

That's not taking "lame shots", those are just the facts.
The finest US Army officer of his time achieved a truly remarkable record, right?

FLT-bird: "LOL!
Yours is the weakest because its based on multiple giant steaming piles of BS like your claim that SOutherners ruled the federal government somehow.....even though they were in the minority and even though they had long bitterly complained about tariffs and unequal federal expenditures."

Nonsense because, one more time: Southerners were the majority of Democrats and Democrats ruled Washington, DC, almost continuously from 1800 until secession in 1861.
For Southerners to rule they needed only get along with their Doughfaced Northern Democrat allies.
Is that too much to ask?
Make nice with your friends & allies, so you can stand up against your political opponents?

I don't think so, do you?

FLT-bird: "They weren’t stupid enough to blame Lee who was sent there for a relatively short time with nowhere near enough resources to guard the border."

Iirc, Lee's record in Texas was less than sterling, and not because he had too few resources.
As in other situations, it was mental mistakes that tripped him up.

FLT-bird: "The Left today almost invariably screams to centralize power in the hands of the federal government....then they turn right around and declare sanctuary cities/states when federal elections don’t go the way they want.
Republicans claim to want a balanced budget or to at least rein in the spending, then when they get in office they vote for a big fat bloated turkey of a budget like we saw this past year."

Well said!

The February 1961 Senate vote was 25 to 14. By that time seven southern states had withdrawn their Senators from Congress. With those 14 anti-tarrif votes the bill would have failed 28-25. It was clear it was never going to pass as written.

“No its not. Its patently absurd to say the South went in order to preserve it when they could have preserved it simply by staying in....or by accepting the North’s Slavery Forever constitutional amendment.”

Now here your crazy train leaves the rails at two points as it careens down the mainline of the revisionist express.

First, just because they COULD have kept slavery doesn’t mean secesh THOUGHT that way. Southern Democrats viewed the Republican Party as such a threat to the institution of slavery that they, as I pointed out in a previous post, had already threatened secession if the GOP won in 1856.

Now in fairness to Johnny Reb, imagine how Second Amendment supports would react today to the election of a Democrat to the White House who openly supported the end of private gun ownership by any means necessary? Not representing any one region, gun owners would not likely move for secession but there would be hell to pay. The difference of course between these two scenarios is that Republicans really didn’t want to outlaw slavery in the Southern states by force at that time, and Americans don’t have the same easily offended mentality that Southerners had then. Plus the Second Amendment is not a morally indefensible abomination like slavery. But if it came down to gun confiscation today I’m sure violence would ensue.

The second place you jump the tracks is suggesting that Southerners only wanted to preserve slavery. They planned on expanding its reach. That’s what drove the Compromise of 1850. Oh, by the way, the Feds took over the public debt of the State of a Texas in that act. Damnation on those scurrilous Yankees for always financially oppressing those poor beleaguered gentlemen of Dixie! But I digress. Southerns wished to spread slavery into new territories, be they within existing American borders or into Carribean islands, or even parts of Mexico.

Southern secession resembled nothing less than a personal duel writ large. The honor and virtue of the South was at stake, and no low down, cotton pickin’, scaliwag mudsill was going to walk all over us!

Actually, “abe” said it was a resupply mission only, and since he gave the appropriate orders, I see no reason to doubt that.
Of course I fully “get” that you must, must, must have “abe” as the villain, but the only way you can get there is to lie about him.

But for Lost Cause mythologizers, that’s no problem, right?

Abe was very likely lying. That was far more than necessary for a “resupply” mission. Of course for PC Revisionists like you a fleet of warships and troops magically disappears because Lincoln said it was only “supplies”.

An argument you’ve posted before, but it was ridiculous then and still is.
Here’s why: no such legal process as “eminent domain” was ever followed, or said to be necessary by secessionists themselves.
So you are merely making excuses for people who didn’t think such excuses needed.

The fact remains there’s no law on any book anywhere in the world which says a government’s property suddenly becomes not it’s property just because some locals declare their secession.
Most specifically, the US Constitution gives Congress and nobody else authority to dispose of US government property.

So challenging such authority is, by definition, law breaking and, in the case of 1861 secessionists they were acts of war against the United States.

Wrong. The argument was valid the first time and is valid still and always will be valid. A sovereign authority can lawfully seize any property it deems necessary for defense. Compensation at fair market value will be owed but its authority to seize that property is not in question.

South Carolina lawfully seceded. All territory within its sovereign borders was for it and it alone to decide what to do with.

But you have no argument because you have no facts, none.

Au contraire. I have the better argument because I have the facts. You have none.

Exactly, you said it:insufficient to warrant secession.
Only war itself was sufficient for Virginians, and that’s why Davis took his first opportunity to give it to them.

Davis did not need Virginia or any other state. The original 7 seceding states were perfectly happy being on their own. Your theory is entirely without supporting evidence. Unless you can produce some statement from Davis showing this was his intent...and gosh, if this is so, he sure played Lincoln like a fiddle by getting him to send a fleet of warships so he could open fire.

Constitutionally, no Federal property could be “sovereign territory” until Congress approved, which it did not.
As for “provocations” Confederate seizures of Federal properties were all provocations.
But when Jefferson Davis assaulted Fort Sumter militarily, that was not a “provocation”, it was an act of war, pure & simple.

But when South Carolina seceded, all property within its borders was for it to determine what to do with. Compensation would be owed but that’s it. They did not require anybody else’s approval to seize property within their own sovereign borders. The act of war was Lincoln sending a fleet of warships and troops to invade South Carolina’s sovereign territory. His own aids and several newspapers said that’s exactly what he did and his letter to his naval commander shows this. Lincoln started the war - deliberately.

No, the facts say otherwise.
Lincoln believed that Capt. Fox’s plan had a reasonable chance of success, meaning he could resupply Fort Sumter and leave without further incident.
Lincoln did not believe that war over Sumter was inevitable.

No the facts say Lincoln started the war deliberately. Lincoln defined Fox’s mission as being successful because it started a war.

Assuming your quote is legit, it’s still pure speculation.
Serious historians of the time do not attribute such motives to Lincoln, but portray him as trying to find a way to resupply Fort Sumter without starting war.
Capt. Fox’s plan was the best he could do.

LOL! Everybody saw it and his own personal aids admitted he did it deliberately. I love how you PC Revisionists try to claim you have some kind of monopoly on “serious historians”. You don’t. Plenty of “serious historians” have said Lincoln deliberately started the war.

Sure, long after the fact, memories fade and are overlapped with subsequent events.
The fact is there was no “duping” involved, that’s why Lincoln informed Governor Pickens in advance.
It made Jefferson Davis’ decision to launch a military assault on Fort Sumter a fully informed decision, for which Davis and Davis alone bears full responsibility.

“La la La (sticking fingers in ears) I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you” That’s what your response amounts to. The Newspapers and even his own personal aids said he did this. His letter to his naval commander shows this was his intent....but its inconvenient for you to admit it so in the face of all the evidence you will just dig your heels in and deny deny deny. Don’t expect anybody reasonable to buy your denials in the face of the evidence.

Sorry, FRiend, but all the lies are coming from our Lost Cause mythologizers.
We’re just here to present the facts.

The fact is those four “Reasons for Secession” documents listed far more than just fugitive slave laws, they listed every issue related to slavery, whether constitutional or not.
The fact that fugitive slaves are covered in the Constitution was coincidental to the Reasons for Secession.
Consider, this section of South Carolina’s “Reasons for Secession”:

“Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and
have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution;
they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery;
they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.
They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government.”

Point is: South Carolina and other “Reasons for Secession” documents did not limit themselves to the Constitutional matter of Fugitive Slaves, but rather, in the manner of a highly agitated spouse, threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at her former partner.

No, FRiend, the lies are entirely yours and the rest of the PC Revisionists.

The fact is that 3 of 4 states that listed causes for secession listed causes other than just slavery...and at great length even though refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the constitution was what was unconstitutional and provided them a basis for saying the Northern states had violated the compact.

When offered slavery expressly protected in the constitution by constitutional amendment which would have been irrevocable without their consent in order to come back, by the North, they refused.

As for throwing everything including the kitchen sink at their former partner.....ever read the Declaration of Independence? Clearly not.

No, not at all.
First of all, so far as I can tell, Rhett’s address was not a legal document, but more along the lines of an editorial or advertising brochure — it represented his opinions but not necessarily official Confederate positions.
Regardless, it does indeed mention issues other than slavery, and even puts them chronologically ahead of slavery.
But when it came right down to it, even for Rhett, the major focus was still (by two to one) issues relating to slavery.

Nothing at all “inconvenient” about that.

Rhett’s address was attached to and went out with South Carolina’s Declaration of Causes. Had it not reflected the opinions of the Delegates at South Carolina’s secession convention, they would not have had it attached to and sent out with their declaration of causes.

Rhett laid out the economic case first and had long argued this case and said he favored secession on economic grounds alone - even though the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the Northern states acting through the Federal government was not unconstitutional.

Sorry, but regardless of how often you repeat it, it’s still a total lie, always was.
Here’s the real truth of this matter: politically speaking, there is no such thing as “the South”, never was.
“The South” always was a multitude of different regions and interests — and not just Deep South, Upper South & Border South, but also Eastern Seaboard, Appalachian Mountains, Cotton South, Mississippi River valley, East Texas lowlands, Louisiana bayou, Ozark Mountains, etc., etc...
Each region elects representatives with somewhat different attitudes, even over such vital matters in 1860 as slavery.
You yourself quoted (or mis-quoted, I don’t know which) Missouri Senator Benton who was, of all things, a Southern Democrat abolitionist!
And if Southerners could disagree on slavery, then they could certainly disagree on such questions as the best tariff rates.
And the best example of that, I’ll repeat, is the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which was originally supported by both future President Jackson and Vice President Calhoun (and opposed by New Englanders).
Yes, later Calhoun strongly objected, but the fact is that without his initial support, it could not have passed.

So the tariff was greatly increased by some Southerners and then slowly lowered back down by others.
It only proves the Southerners ruled Washington, DC, even when they disagreed with each other.

No, its your little pet theory that is a lie no matter how many times you repeat it. Furthermore it is a laughable lie and utter pile of BS. The Southern states were in the minority. They did not control everything. Their long complaints about unfavorable and exploitative economic policies by the federal government amply demonstrates the fact that they did not control everything.

The claim that Northern Democrats just did whatever Southerners ordered them to do because they were Democrats is similarly laughable and something you have ZERO evidence to support.

The South never was and is not a monolith. That is true enough. That said, they were - due to climate - primarily in the business of producing cash crops for export. Their economic interests were largely aligned and the political culture (Jeffersonian Democrats) was pretty homogenous. Of course it was in their interest to have low tariffs and to not see the federal government lavish way more money on another region for corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects. Obviously they would object to both.

That South Carolina had to take the extraordinary step of nullifying the federal tariff proves the Southern states hardly controlled everything in Washington DC. The claim is simply ridiculous.

But no such offer was ever made.
At most it was discussed informally by some Brits sympathetic to American colonists, but the idea was certainly never approved in Parliament or voted on by any Americans.
It is therefore nothing more than somebody’s historical wet-dream.
Never happened.

Ah but the offer was made and discussed. It wasn’t good enough/was just a ploy to get the Colonies to shut up and send their cash to London. The Colonies knew it. That is why they immediately rejected it. That is why Parliament never voted on it since it had already been rejected by the Colonies when it was offered.

Seriously, FRiend, you’ve been victimized by Lost Cause mythology and so have no real grasp on actual history.
President Buchanan was a Northern Doughfaced Democrat, elected in 1856 by the Solid South in alliance with a minority of Northern Democrats.
Buchanan was highly sympathetic to slavery and the South and was instrumental behind the scenes in the Supreme Court’s radical Dred Scott decision.

In late 1860 and early 1861 Buchanan did nothing — zero, zip, nada — to slow or stop secession & Confederacy.
The South could not have a better friend than Buchanan, though in the end Buchanan could not bring himself to publically support the Confederacy, he did nothing to stop it.

Presidential election of 1856, when the South still had many friends up North.

Well FRiend, you’ve been spouting PC Revisionist dogma without factual support from the start. You clearly know nothing about history other than the very biased and blinkered “history” indoctrinated into students in the government schools and by PC Revisionists in academia in the last generation.......the Leftists’ “long march through the institutions” as they called it.

Buchanan was generally friendly to the South. he did not believe the federal government had the authority to use force to prevent secession - in line with the majority from the ratification of the constitution to 1860. He was hardly a shill of the South though. He was a Pennsylvanian and did sign the Morrill Tariff which the Southern states were dead set against.

Totally irrelevant!
What matters is that Southern Democrats remained in control of the majority Democrat party until secession in 1861.
They did this with support from Northern allies like President Buchanan, allies they lost when they declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.

ROTFLMAO! Simply laughable BS! It directly refutes your laughable claim that somehow Southerners controlled everything despite being in the minority. You have never once shown any evidence that Northern Democrats just did whatever Southern Democrats ordered them to do. Like Goebbels, you appear to believe if you just repeat the lie often enough that will do the trick. It won’t. Its still a lie.

Sure, one of those very rare occasions when Democrats lost control of one house of Congress.
They still ruled the Senate, Presidency, Supreme Court and the army with Jefferson Davis the Secretary of War!

And by 1856 Democrats were back in control of both houses of Congress, the Presidency, Supreme Court and military.
So their very brief sojourn in the minority “woods” of one house could not possibly seriously reduce the Democrats iron grip over Washington, DC.

The Democrats were not all powerful and the Southern Democrats did not control everything no matter how many times you try to claim without any evidence to support it, that they did.

Oh, my goodness, those pooooor dear snowflake babies, doesn’t your heart just cry out in anguish for those Democrats who, having grown totally accustomed to rule with an iron fist over Washington, DC, now suddenly in 1858 found themselves once again kicked out of power in one house of Congress!!
Now in 1859 they must console their poooor hearts with control over only the US Senate, the Presidency, Supreme Court and military.
Oh, the pooooor snowflakes, how could they ever learn to get along with those evil deplorable, irredeemable, basket of bitter clinging REPUBLICANS!!

Doesn’t your heart just cry out in sympathy?
I know mind does.
I know what Democrats in 1859 should do too: RESIST, and attack the collusion of those deplorable Republicans with, with... with... oh, who did they collude with??? I know, it must have been Russians!

Nobody supports your laughable claim that Southern Democrats controlled everything in Washington DC. There is nothing to support this laughable claim. What the evidence shows is that the South’s representatives were steadily losing their ability to prevent partisan sectional legislation which would do grave harm to their region from being passed. As several historians I have already posted here noted, this was why they seceded.

False.

No its true. You do obfuscate....that is when you do not just try to flat out deny all the historical evidence in favor of your pet theories for which you have no evidence.

False.
When you really look at what they wrote, they were all over the map.
It wasn’t just a simple case of saying “fugitive slave laws”, rather they dredged up and threw out every complaint they ever had, regardless of how valid, but all about slavery.

So obfuscate that all you wish, but it’s still true.

Nope. Its true. The slavery issue provided them the convenient political cover they needed to secede....which they wanted to do for economic reasons. Their actions....namely refusing slavery forever by express constitutional amendment amply demonstrate protection of slavery was not their real concern.

Right, and just as with “Commiefornia’s” sanctuary laws, constitutionally Federal law, ahem, trumps state laws.
But Federal laws must be enforced, and if the regime in Washington won’t do it, then states run wild, which is what happened then and is happening now.
But who’s to blame?
Throughout the 1850s Democrats ruled over Washington, DC, and Southerners ruled the Democrats.
They enforced what they wanted to enforce.
We have to believe, if they were truly concerned about it, they would have enforced their own laws.
So why didn’t they?
Obviously, it wasn’t that big a deal for them, then.

That was far from established in the mid 19th century....ie that federal law trumps state law...and what the feds could do about it if a state simply refused to comply.

Southerners did not control everything in Washington. This is still a lie no matter how many times you repeat it. Also as I have shown, Democrats did not control everything in the 1850s. This is simply a fantasy on your part which you cannot prove...because its pure BS.

No it isn’t.

yes it is. This is what it means to be sovereign.

They gave up absolute sovereignty on ratifying the US Constitution.

They DELEGATED SOME of their sovereignty and RETAINED the right to unilateral secession.

Rubbish.

Nope! Its true. Sovereignty means you exercise power in your own right and do not derive your power from any other source. They did not need permission from others. The states never agreed to that and you cannot find anything that says they did in the constitution.

Nonsense.

Nope! It was for them to decide. That’s what being sovereign is....exercising power in their own right.

Pure fantasy.

You have things exactly backwards. States are sovereign. Their sovereignty was recognize in the 1783 Treaty of Paris and they never surrendered their sovereignty. Nowhere did they ever agree to bind themselves forever and require the permission of other states in order to “resume the powers of government” as they called it. In fact 3 states expressly reserved that right and the 10th amendment makes clear that any power not delegated to the federal government by the states remains with the states.

Horse feathers.
When South Carolinians met in November & December 1860 to decide on secession, their fear was “Ape” Lincoln and his Black Republicans, not what percentage some new tariff might be.
Really, you should read some real history some day.

Pure BS. Their fear was that the Lincoln would get the Morrill Tariff passed - the issue he himself said was most important. They knew from experience what this would mean for their economy having gone through the Tariff of Abominations. Try reading what the people at the time were saying instead of “interpretations” from PC Revisionists in Academia.

Wrong again.
The original Morrill tariff proposal, which was defeated by Southern Democrats in 1860, called for a modest increase back to average levels of years past.
It was certainly nothing remotely close to the levels eventually forced on it by Civil War.
But Fire Eaters destroyed the national Democrat party at their conventions in 1860 and the results included victory for the minority Republicans.
As a result, Democrats in the 1861 Congress could not defeat Morrill by themselves, but that was irrelevant when secession states walked out giving Republicans free hand.
Faced with potential Civil War, the final Morrill Tariff was much higher than it would be had Southern Democrats stuck around to defend their own interests.

Apparently you never tire of spewing BS and lies. The morrill Tariff would DOUBLE tariff rates right off the bat. Of course everybody knew that the Northern special interests wouldn’t stop there and would push for ever more. If they were able to get that the first time there would be no stopping them from getting more later....and that is precisely what happened as the Morrill Tariff was jacked up to TRIPLE what tariff rates had been before. They kept this in place until the 19-teens. So much for the excuse that this was forced on them by the war they started. This is what they wanted all along as Southerners knew right from the start.

False, because regardless of how often repeated, there still are no actual facts to support such claims.
The facts we do have say otherwise, and logic tells us that Congress must, long term, spend its money roughly in proportion to its constituents.

False. I have already shown that federal expenditures greatly favored the Northern states at the expense of the South. I have shown numerous statements by all parties at the time as well as scholarly works by prominent historians and tax experts. Meanwhile you have one 1928 book.

And your claims that the majority Southerners in the majority Democrat party did not control the Federal government are nothing but pure fantasy.

Again Goebbels, repeating the BS that the minority Southerners were somehow able to control everything in Washington DC despite their numerous complaints about federal government policies that favored the north and drained money out of their pockets remains a lie. Had they really controlled everything, there would not have been the sectional partisan legislation Southerners long complained about.

Irrelevant once the 1850 Compromise transferred responsibility for Fugitive Slave law enforcement to the Southern dominated Feds.

Directly relevant since Northern states DID in fact pass those laws and took extra legal measures like mob violence to prevent federal agents from enforcing fugitive slave laws. The federal government was not nearly as powerful then as it is now.....it had not usurped nearly as much power.

Well, “kowtow” is a pretty strong word, but there were still many Northern Doughfaces left, including President Buchanan.
Yes, it certainly was possible Southerners might need to learn more diplomatic skills, instead of just cracking the whip over their Northern Democrat allies.

So what do you think, was there any chance they could do that?

I think this whole trope of yours is laughable BS. Northern Democrats were elected by Northern voters and those campaigns were affected by Northern special interest groups. Northern Democrats had every incentive to please the special interests in their own region and no incentive to just take orders from Southern Democrats.

But there were several new tariffs and many adjustments between 1830 and 1861 and the net results were a steadily falling overall rate.
Note here the falling rates between 1830 and 1861:

Yes as I said, tariffs went down after the Nullification Crisis. Reducing tariffs was the compromise that ended it.

But Morrill absolutely could not pass the Senate in 1860, only passed in 1861 after Democrats seceded & walked out.
Furthermore, the blame for Democrat election losses in 1860 belongs solely on Democrats themselves, specifically Southern Fire Eaters who broke up the national Democrat party over slavery, thus turning the election over to minority Republicans.

So you see, once again, it was all about slavery.

But Morrill was going to pass the Senate in 1861. All that was needed was to pick off a Senator or two and that could easily be accomplished with a few key payoffs to this or that state to flip one or two. That happens all the time.

So you see, it was all about Tariffs and unequal federal expenditures.

Had it really been about slavery, the Corwin Amendment would have addressed those concerns.

Utter rubbish, since the original Morrill increases were quite modest, simply returned tariffs to their levels of, say, 1850.
Drastic increases only became possible and necessary after secession and looming Civil War.

Pure BS and lies. The Original Morrill increases DOUBLED the tariff rates. They ended up TRIPLING the pre-Morrill tariff rates and they kept those in place for 50 years. So much for the excuse that this was needed to pay for the war.

More nonsense, since Morrill was intended to protect US manufacturing of which there was already a huge amount in the Midwest.
Slavery had nothing to do with it.

There was some manufacturing in the upper Midwest. Slavery was used as a wedge issue to get Midwestern farmers to go along with the high tariffs which were otherwise not in their interest. A sweetener was added in the form of more infrastructure projects - especially railroads - that would be built in the Midwest to get them to go along with it.

Whatever subsidies might or might not have been available would also go to Southern interests had they been there to defend themselves.
But they walked out.

LOL! Laughable BS! The Southern states had long seen that they were going to get consistently hosed on infrastructure spending by the federal government. Say....where was the transcontinental railroad to be built? Oh that’s right! The federal government just happened to pick the Northern route. What a shock!

Right, because Lincoln was a Republican and like the Whigs before them, Republicans believed in protecting & promoting US manufacturers.
Indeed, in more recent years we Republicans sort of lost our way on this subject, got intellectually seduced by a bunch of Democrat nonsense, I’d think.

Fortunately, now we have a leader in the tradition of Lincoln who intends ot make America great again by putting Americans first again.

What do you think, FLT-bird, good idea?

1. this shows that the tariff was what was animating the Republicans and Southerners knew this. Slavery was something Republicans were perfectly willing to compromise on as they showed by passing the Corwin Amendment.

2. Tariffs are in general a bad idea. That said there is room for them in limited circumstances like national security. I think Trump is jaw jacking with China because China has been gaming the system for a long time imposing high tariffs on other countries while benefiting from low tariffs on their exports...not to mention theft of intellectual property which they do on a massive scale and oh yeah, artificially depressing the value of their currency to make their goods cheaper on international markets. I think having a trade war and cutting off most trade with China would be a bad idea....but I don’t think that’s what Trump is doing. I think he is talking tough to get China to roll over and give us a fairer deal. He’s right when he says we are getting hosed. I support him in trying to put the screws to China to get a better deal for our exporters.

So you keep repeating, over & over & over again, but still doesn’t make it true.
In fact, all you’re really doing here is projecting your own thoughts back onto 1860 Deep South Fire Eaters.
So I’d suggest that you have no real idea what they thought, or why, but you insist it can’t be what they said at the time, because that doesn’t help you defend them today, right?

I’m not just projecting my thoughts back. Others at the time said it too like the two northern newspapers I linked as well as the Southern newspapers. Foreign observers like Dickens said the same. Andrew Jackson said something pretty prophetic 30 years earlier:

On May 1, 1833, President Andrew Jackson wrote, “the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.” Jon Meecham (2009), American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, New York: Random House, p. 247; Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Vol. V, p. 72.

I disagree with him that the tariff was a pretext. I do agree that slavery was a pretext.

Total complete BS, for which you have no evidence except your own mental state.
Your own loathing for those deplorable, irredeemable Republicans simply prevents you from having realistic ideas about us.
In your mind it’s all just seething darkness and hatred, but the reality is far, far different.
I’m just sorry FLT-bird can never see it.

No it was true. Jefferson Davis and several others said the same. You talk about Republicans as “us”. Republicans in the mid 19th century were NOTHING LIKE Republicans today and the same is true of Democrats.

Now as for extending slavery to the territories and claims of some fantasy “slaveocracy” on the part of Northern extremists....

in 1860, in the New Mexico Territory, an area which encompassed the area presently occupied by the States of New Mexico and Arizona, that there were a grand total of 22 slaves, only 12 of whom were actually domiciled there. If the South intended to be a “Slave Power,” spreading its labor system across the entire continent, it was doing a pretty poor job of it. Commenting on this fact, an English publication in 1861 said, “When, therefore, so little pains are taken to propagate slavery outside the circle of the existing slave states, it cannot be that the extension of slavery is desired by the South on social or commercial grounds directly, and still less from any love for the thing itself for its own sake. But the value of New Mexico and Arizona politically is very great! In the Senate they would count as 4 votes with the South or with the North according as they ranked in the category of slave holding or Free soil states”.

It was a power struggle plain and simple. It was about getting more votes in Congress to affect national economic policy as well as to check or further the centralization of power in the hands of the federal govt.

Which only shows that Davis could be as sick in the head as FLT-bird.
That’s too bad.

It shows what the people at the time were thinking - not these a-historical fantasies you try to project backward in time to suit your political dogma.

I would first question if this quote is even legit, because its language sounds “off”.
But also notice that Davis says nothing about wanting Northern type industry in the South.
What he wants instead is to be free of alleged Northern “aggrandizement”.

Davis’ problem is that there’s no real evidence to demonstrate how “Northerners” were in fact “aggrandizing”.

First this is a standard tactic for you now I see.....claim any inconvenient quote is somehow not legitimate despite plenty of evidence that it is. I have already provided citations for several quotes you challenged.

Secondly, Davis mentions “the South and their industry”.

Third, Davis had plenty of evidence showing Northerners were aggrandizing....high tariffs which favored their manufacturing industry at the South’s expense and grossly unequal federal government expenditures that favored Northern states even though the vast majority of the tariff burden was paid by Southerners.

Total rubbish because in fact there were as many freed-blacks in the North as in the South — over 200,000 each, nearly 500,000 total.
Northern states of New York and Pennsylvania had over 50,000 each as did Southern states Maryland & Virginia.
Of course, some states, both North and South had very few freed-blacks — Mississippi & Texas had fewer than 1,000 each, as did New Hampshire & Vermont.

But generalizations such as yours here are simply wrong.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. You have swallowed the myth of the virtuous North whole I see. Need I tell you where the first “black codes” started? It was in the North, not the South. They were passed with the express purpose of preventing free blacks from settling there and driving out the ones who did settle there.

This is a very ugly history that is rarely taught in the government schools.

Ohio Republican Senator John Sherman, (brother of William T. Sherman): “We do not like the Negroes. We do not disguise our dislike…..The whole people of the Northwestern states are opposed to having many Negroes among them and that principle or prejudice has been engraved in the legislation for nearly all of the Northwestern states.”

“The Negro race already occupy enough space on this fair continent.” Josiah Quincy, Massachusetts

So the Negro [in the North] is free, but he cannot share the rights, pleasures, labors, griefs, or even the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared; there is nowhere where he can meet him, neither in life nor in death. In the South, where slavery still exists, less trouble is taken to keep the Negro apart: they sometimes share the labors and the pleasures of the white men; people are prepared to mix with them to some extent; legislation is more harsh against them, but customs are more tolerant and gentle. -Alexis De Tocqueville, “Democracy in America”, Harper & Row, 1966, p.343.

“I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal. . . We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable.” -Abraham Lincoln

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ... Abraham Lincoln

“The Indiana constitutional convention of 1851 adopted a provision forbidding black migration into the state. This supplemented the state’s laws barring blacks already there from voting, serving on juries or in the militia, testifying against whites in court, marrying whites, or going to school with whites. Iowa and Illinois had similar laws on the books and banned black immigration by statute in 1851 and 1853 respectively. These measures reflected the racist sentiments of most whites in those states.” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 80)

“There can be no doubt that many blacks were sorely mistreated in the North and West. Observers like Fanny Kemble and Frederick L. Olmsted mentioned incidents in their writings. Kemble said of Northern blacks, ‘They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race. . . . All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues . . . have learned to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach.’ Olmsted seems to have believed the Louisiana black who told him that they could associate with whites more freely in the South than in the North and that he preferred to live in the South because he was less likely to be insulted there.” (John Franklin and Alfred Moss, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 185.

“For all the good intentions of many early white abolitionists, blacks were not especially welcome in the free states of America. Several territories and states, such as Ohio, not only refused to allow slavery but also had passed laws specifically limiting or excluding any blacks from entering its territory or owning property.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 54)

“. . . in 1862 white laborers erupted into mob violence against blacks in a half-dozen cities across the North. . . . The mobs sometimes surged into black neighborhoods and assaulted people on the streets and in their homes. . . .

“Our people hate the Negro with a perfect if not a supreme hatred,’ said Congressman George Julian of Indiana. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois conceded that ‘there is a very great aversion in the West—I know it to be so in my State—against having free negroes come among us. Our people want nothing to do with the negro.’ The same could be said of many soldiers. . . .” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 275)

“In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes’ right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had “a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 54)

“Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.” Abraham Lincoln

“Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a god, great enough to make and maintain this universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogue-ism as this?” Abraham Lincoln

“I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. … And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. Abraham Lincoln

There is much more here
http://slavenorth.com/

But only because Fire Eaters like your friend Rhett destroyed the national Democrat party in 1860, giving the minority Republicans a victory.
Had Democrats remained united in 1860 they might well have forced a compromise more to their liking in 1861.

Very unlikely. All that was needed was to pick off a senator or two and that could easily be accomplished with traditional “log rolling”. The Morrill Tariff was going to pass.

Ha! Not “lame shots”, just the facts, shall we review?

Lee was assigned to protect Texas against Indians.
He failed.
Lee was assigned to defend West Virginia against George McClellan (!!).
He failed.
Lee was assigned to protect Fort Polaski in Georgia against a Union combined army-navy assault.
He failed.
Lee was assigned to protect Virginia against Grant.
He failed.

That’s not taking “lame shots”, those are just the facts.
The finest US Army officer of his time achieved a truly remarkable record, right?

Yes, lame shots. Your hate and bitterness really comes out here.

Lee was not in Texas for very long and was not given anywhere near enough resources to do the job....as Texans pointed out. The Federal government was simply not willing to give the resources and troops necessary to get the job done.

As for Lee’s military record, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest military leaders of all time - no less a figure than Winston Churchill (among many others) said so. He consistently had to confront a far larger and better armed and better supplied federal army and he beat them very often while inflicting far more casualties on them than he took. I give Grant the credit for being able to do the math. The “fumbling butcher” as his own men called him, realized he had more men to lose and he was willing to lose them. Lose them he did as his army LOST more men fighting against Lee than Lee even had in his army.

There is a reason Lee was offered command of both armies.

Nonsense because, one more time: Southerners were the majority of Democrats and Democrats ruled Washington, DC, almost continuously from 1800 until secession in 1861.
For Southerners to rule they needed only get along with their Doughfaced Northern Democrat allies.
Is that too much to ask?
Make nice with your friends & allies, so you can stand up against your political opponents?

I don’t think so, do you?

Horsecrap. Northern Democrats did not take orders from Southern Democrats. The Democratic Party was not even formed until Andrew Jackson came along. YOu’ve constructed a ridiculous little fantasy in your own mind which you doggedly cling to despite not having any proof to support it.

Iirc, Lee’s record in Texas was less than sterling, and not because he had too few resources.
As in other situations, it was mental mistakes that tripped him up.

If you can manage to get over your irrational hatred and actually read about Lee in Texas, you might learn something. For example:

Texas had a frontier of more than 1,200 miles, with only 2,886 United States officers and enlisted men to defend it.

As a result of Congress’s formation of two new regiments in 1855 Lee was called for the first time to command men, and Lee was transferred from his place of engineer to the post of lieutenant-colonel in the Second Cavalry, one of the regiments in question.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Lee_in_texas-.htm

But but but....the failure of the US Army to defend the Texas border was ALL the fault of the 2nd in command of one of the cavalry regiments! LOL!

The February 1961 Senate vote was 25 to 14. By that time seven southern states had withdrawn their Senators from Congress. With those 14 anti-tarrif votes the bill would have failed 28-25. It was clear it was never going to pass as written.

All that would have been needed would have been to flip a Senator or two. That could easily have been done by throwing a few bones to them in the form of adding something produced in their state to the list of items to be subject to the tariff, promising some infrastructure project paid for with federal money to be built in their state, etc. It would have passed.