[rockrr]

Instead, why not read and think about what they wrote at that time in the various declarations of secession?

I have - all of them. And I've compared them to the Declaration of Independence as a sort of benchmark since so many lost causers attempt to apply that in an analogous way to their insurrection. They all come up short and they all seem contrived - with the exception of those which told the honest truth - that they were quitting over slavery.

The plain, unvarnished truth is that, although there was friction and strife, there was no tyranny.

[riverdawg]

I have no argument with the claim that the driving force of the secessions was Lincoln's election and his determination to end slavery; that's clear in most (but not all) of the individual declarations. And it's clear from his writings and speeches that he was willing to use force to maintain the union and to abolish slavery. That was the morally correct position. But I don't see a contradiction between acknowledging that slavery was the core issue leading up to the rebellion and understanding that many Southerners believed that the Union was breaking a compact (the Constitution, the Compromise of 1850, and various other state and federal laws) in a tyrannical (I.e., extra-legal) way in doing so.