So the "single standard" is whatever the Confederacy wanted? They wanted all the slave states and were entitled to them, but because they didn't set up puppet regimes for free states, the rest of the country should have been grateful and just given them whatever they wanted?
The fundamental point was that the secession of West Virginia was exactly the same issue of self-determination as the secession of the CSA. On the issue of self-determination alone, you cannot logically reject one and accept the other, nor accept one and reject the other. There must be other elements brought into the discussion to make a differentiation.
West Virginia became a state following the constitutional procedure for admitting new states. You can argue that what happened was illegitimate, because the people who were shooting at us weren't given a veto over it, but the process is written in black and white in the constitution. It wasn't a matter of some abstract right to self-determination to be exercised in spite of the provisions of the constitution. "Self-determination" doesn't automatically trump the rule of law or the Constitution.
Why did Lincoln and his supporters consider it worth war to make half the country, who overwhelmingly wished to split bonds, submit to federal control?
If it really was a matter of half the country wanting to leave, Lincoln wouldn't have won the war or even been elected. By voters or population it was considerably less than half. That ought to have inspired caution in the secessionist leaders, rather than recklessness.
If you have to kill and crush a state to make it submit to your union, it is obviously a one-sided benefit. Much the same as the difference between the union of marriage and rape.
Bringing up rape in this context is like bringing up Hitler. It calls into question just how good your arguments really are (as well as your sense of good taste).
But what the Unionists were concerned about was what they regarded as the rule of law and constitutional procedure. To that we can add the sense of nationhood and anger at the insult to the flag.
Given the ambiguities involved, the may have been wrong about what the rule of law required, but their case wasn't any worse than that of the secessionists. The other, more emotional matters don't have as much appeal today (at least until such emotions flare up again), but they were taken very seriously by the 19th century.
To say that the unionists didn't have a case apart from slavery is to stack the deck by simply ignoring such arguments as they did have and make.
Of course, the North could have proffered to have a national solution to slavery, say a 10-20 year plan to purchase, apprentice, and free slaves. That was a popular notion, and the cost certainly would have been less than the war. It was a common notion because it is exactly what the British had done. The South might have rejected it, but it would have been worth exploring.
It was not a popular notion. Not in the slave states, where the matter couldn't even be discussed, and probably not in the country as a whole. There was the matter of cost and the matter of what would happen to the freedmen, what rights and opportunities would be given to the former slaves.
But beyond all that, compensated emancipation -- the prospect of an end to slavery -- wasn't a measure that would appease the secessionists, but rather one that would inflame them. Talk about an end to slavery in anything other than the remote fullness of time was bound to be perceived as a threat to plantation interests and would incense many slave-owners.
Others, convinced the boom in cotton prices would continue would simply dismiss such a proposal. Such a proposal would also likely cost the government support in the Border States and the southern Midwest.
So why not negotiate? Likely because Lincoln and his supporters saw a need to strike while the iron was hot, the country was agitated, and not risk losing a chance to end slavery, whatever the means. But that's not what he sold to the Northern people who would do the dying.
I'd say it was Davis who was "striking while the iron was hot" -- creating a crisis to whip up support for secession. As for Lincoln, any US president wants to save face. No president wants to be seen as the one who let the country fall to pieces on his watch. So most presidents would not simply collapse before separatist demands. The same goes for most leaders of most countries around the world -- very much including democratically elected leaders.
So if you are leading a separationist movement and want to be successful, you recognize that. You try to avoid pushing your would-be former government's back to the wall. You recognize that what's at stake isn't just your own wants and wishes.
But I suspect that secessionist leaders then and their defenders now are more into emotionalism than in actually achieving their goals through prudent and responsible action.
You’ve struck on the key.
Your SimpleMinded opponent desperately wants to promote the meme that it was northern interests that caused the War of Southern Aggression. In order to do so one must ignore who for decades leading up to the war constantly agitated against union solidarity (the south), who seized on the event of a presidential election to commit their insurrection (the south), who instigated hostile actions against their neighbors all across the nation (the south), and who illegally stole federal forts, ships, arsenals, armories, mints, etc., fired on Federal ships, and threatened Federal officials even before Lincoln called for militias to restore order (the south).
And yet with all this belligerence they still castigate Lincoln for failing to “show restraint”. I’m inclined to chalk it up to invincible ignorance.
The slave states weren't taken by the CSA, they were sovereign and left of their own accord. The struggles (and dual governments) in states such as Missouri were the result of relatively balanced forces struggling for control within those states. Union puppet states set up of non-border states that were vastly in favor of secession were morally reprehensible assaults on the Constitution.
West Virginia became a state following the constitutional procedure for admitting new states. You can argue that what happened was illegitimate,
But you can't argue with a shred of intellectual honesty that it was legitimate. The Soviets always "followed the law" too. What was done made a mockery of the Constitution pure and simple. That they made stage craft using the Constitution as a prop didn't make it more legitimate, it just made it more reprehensible.
If it really was a matter of half the country wanting to leave, Lincoln wouldn't have won the war or even been elected. By voters or population it was considerably less than half. That ought to have inspired caution in the secessionist leaders, rather than recklessness.
First, take a look at the map. Second, had the South had the industrial base, they would have won. Third, you are now adding mob rule to your dictatorial central government admiration. And you post on FR why?
Bringing up rape in this context is like bringing up Hitler. It calls into question just how good your arguments really are (as well as your sense of good taste).
Oh yea, because a 4 year war, killing hundreds of thousands and decimating entire regions shouldn't be compared to something as serious as rape. Next I'll be sensationalizing the holocaust by comparing it to a mass shooting.
I was correct the first time about the character of someone who hangs their hat on the legitimacy of a puppet government.