Before he took office, New York was making plans to secede. When the Confederacy announced its much lower tariff rates, governors and businessmen clamored for war.
Lincoln accommodated them by invading Charleston and Pensacola.
Total rubbish.
Even the postal service was still functioning more-or-less normally.
PeaRidge: "Before he took office, New York was making plans to secede."
Complete hogwash, though many New Yorkers, then as now, were Democrats with natural sympathies for their Southern Democrat brethren.
PeaRidge: "When the Confederacy announced its much lower tariff rates, governors and businessmen clamored for war."
Wrong again.
Instead, Northern demands for Federal action against those uppity slave-holders rose or fell with each new Confederate outrage -- seizing Union forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- or rumored prospect for peace.
PeaRidge: "Lincoln accommodated them by invading Charleston and Pensacola."
Yet more nonsense.
Lincoln "invaded" nothing, any more that the US "invades" Cuba by sending our ships, supplies and reinforcements to US forces at the US base, Guantanamo, Cuba.
Just as President Buchanan had in January, Lincoln merely attempted to resupply Union forces at Forts Sumter & Pickens.
The Confederates' military assault on Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, was a clear act of war against the United States, equivalent to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1942.
The Confederacy soon formalized their rebellion by declaring war on the United States (May 6, 1861) and sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
If I read the numbers correctly, it appears that independence for the South results in an immediate 237 million dollar loss per year for New England financial interests. Wasn't Lincoln supported heavily by rich New Yorkers in his bid to become President?
My recollection was that his New York speech is what convinced them to support him.
Is this that same "Wall Street" class that decries money in politics so long as it is someone's other than their own?