The Tenth Amendment gave the individual states the power to secede. They didn't need a Constitutional Convention with states that were already violating the written word of the Constitution. What good was the word of those Northern states? Fool me once, etc.
Plus, of course, there was the tariff situation. The old tariff was already extracting many millions of dollars annually from the South for the benefit of Northern manufacturers, Northern workers, and Northern port businesses involved in trade. The Warehousing Act resulted in concentrating import facilities in New York City where importers could store items tariff free in warehouses for two years until they were sold (from memory). Regardless of where in the country the imported goods ultimately went, the tariff on those goods arriving in New York was collected in New York.
An editorial in the daily Chicago Times newspaper comes to mind [December 1860]:
The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole . . . We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.
The new Morrill Tariff was going to greatly increase that extraction of wealth from the South.
Plus, of course, there was the tariff situation. The old tariff was already extracting many millions of dollars annually from the South for the benefit of Northern manufacturers, Northern workers, and Northern port businesses involved in trade. The Warehousing Act resulted in concentrating import facilities in New York City where importers could store items tariff free in warehouses for two years until they were sold (from memory).
Regardless of where in the country the imported goods ultimately went, the tariff on those goods arriving in New York was collected in New York.
Succinct but devastating rebuttal for those who can't shake off our K-12 indoctrination.
Sure, as somebody posted here recently, that was Jefferson Davis' argument in January, 1861, on the US Senate floor.
But no legitimate Founder ever made such an argument, certainly not Madison, Hamilton or Jay in the Federalist Papers.
Therefore it was not Founders Original Intent.
Well, if you argue: "Founders intent doesn't matter, what really matters is Patrick Henry's intent and warnings", then you reveal yourself as an anti-Federalist, anti-Constitution and not validly conservative.
But I've never seen a pro-Confederate who would admit so much.
rustbucket: "An editorial in the daily Chicago Times newspaper comes to mind [December 1860]:
I have long wondered where all these bogus numbers came from, turns out they were extant at the time.
They were nonsense, propaganda against the North and Union in general, it seems.
Much more careful studies still show Deep South cotton hugely important to total US exports, but not 72%, rather closer to 50% depending on what-all you include.
And US tariffs in 1860 averaged around 15%, not the "30% to 50%" the piece claims.
What it demonstrates is that the press was every bit as dishonest in those days as it is in ours, and in this case as least, misunderstandings lead to false grievances which helped produce declarations of secession and Civil War.
But none of this was listed as a "Cause of Secession" in any secessionist state document.
The "cause of secession" they did list at great length was their concern that Northern hostility to their "peculiar institution" made Union untenable.
Of course, nothing had happened except an election, there were no new complaints in December 1860 which had not been there in, say, October 1860, and yet suddenly the Deep South declared secession, "at pleasure" and for "light and transient causes".