No, not in my opinion. I did correct you.
Call it states rights or second-class citizenship it you want, the underlying issue was slavery
BZZZZTTT!! States' rights and self-determination. IOW, the whole ball of wax. That's what Abe Lincoln attacked -- legally, politically, militarily, every way he could.
One president. One outcome. One vision.
Everyone else was wrong. Anyone who stood up, went to prison or was killed on the battlefield.
and the protection of it at all costs as a viable institution in the U.S. The south, correctly, viewed slavery as the cornerstone of their economic well-being, and the fabric of their southern society. They viewed the election of the Republican administration as a threat to that institution, and as their reason for rebellion.
[You] .....and the protection of it at all costs as a viable institution in the U.S. The south, correctly, viewed slavery as the cornerstone of their economic well-being, and the fabric of their southern society. They viewed the election of the Republican administration as a threat to that institution, and as their reason for rebellion.
All correct, down to the last clause, which is incorrect both in argument and in diction.
First, there was no rebellion. The States were within their right to leave the Union -- and don't give me "light and transient causes" when 13 States leave the Union and two more try to follow, all with the threat of war hanging over their heads. There was nothing "light and transient", nothing of "velleities" in secession.
Second, their reason for seceding was their impending total loss of any ability to affect their future -- of being trapped in a majoritarian dictatorship that hated them.
That isn't about slavery. It's about survival. Congress wouldn't even appropriate money to fight the Comanches in Texas -- how bad does it have to get?
You're still singing in the Red Chorus with those a capella Communists, McPherson and Foner. "It was all about slavery" -- that propaganda slogan has been refuted and stomped flatter than a crisp tortilla, and you are engaging in the worst kind of ideological bloodymindedness to bring it back in here after you've been pounded flat about it.
You are confuted utterly on that Marxian argument, Non-Sequitur. I'm not even going to discuss it with you any more. You are dead wrong, flat wrong , and your flat-wrongness has been pointed out to you in arguments and proofs that only a case-hardened and triple-annealed ideologue would reject.
McPherson is wrong, Foner is wrong, and you are wrong -- and all three of you know it!
Stop it!
You seem to ascribe certain motivations to Lincoln that did not exist prior the southern military aggression.
If "state's rights" was the issue, what had legally changed between 1850 and 1861? If the south was content to stay in the Union under the terms of the 1850 Compromise, why did they suddenly feel the justified by attempting to leave?
Does this represent your "scholarly" point of view, or your endorsement of their institutions?