Replies

DiogenesLamp: "No, you always force it back to slavery, because you don't have a moral leg to stand on if it is debated on any other question."

And if pigs could fly, then we'd debate their aerodynamic qualities, but since they can't, we won't.
So Deep South Fire-Eaters declared their secessions, as they clearly explained, to protect their "peculiar institution" of slavery -- that's the fact, not even debatable.

No, Fire-Eaters did not start Civil War to protect slavery, nor did Lincoln accept their war just to abolish slavery.
But Lincoln's family had long been opposed to slavery, and when war-time conditions favored abolition, Lincoln fully supported it.

DiogenesLamp: "The facts which are becoming clear to me is that the New England business interests saw an independent South as a grave threat to their finances, and they therefore used their influence to push Lincoln into forcing the South back into the Union."

But Lincoln never recognized those states as having lawfully left the Union.
And especially in eight Upper South & Border States, Lincoln believed there were huge numbers of Unionists who had not been properly represented in Southern secessions.
He intended to protect their pro-Union interests.
So "forcing the South back into the Union," was not Lincoln's motive in early 1861.

Rather, the question for Lincoln was whether or how to accept the war being provoked, started, formally declared and waged by the Confederacy against the United States.
For that, Lincoln needed, and accepted, no advice from Northern economic interests.
Instead, as a lawyer and former Congressman, Lincoln's focus was Constitutional, legal, moral and political.
He did not agree that unilateral unapproved declarations of secession were constitutional, and would not accept Confederate military assaults on United States troops in places like Fort Sumter.
Northern economic interests had nothing to do with it.

DiogenesLamp: "Even an Englishman across the pond could see what was going on."

Many English elite supported the Confederacy -- enough that people like Jefferson Davis hoped for British diplomatic recognition.
That those Brits' views were skewed by economic concerns is understandable, but certainly does not make them correct.

"The Russian Minister in Washington Eduard de Stoeckl noted, 'The Cabinet of London is watching attentively the internal dissensions of the Union and awaits the result with an impatience which it has difficulty in disguising.'
De Stoeckl advised his government that Britain would recognize the Confederate States at its earliest opportunity.
Cassius Clay, the United States Minister in Russia, stated, 'I saw at a glance where the feeling of England was.
They hoped for our ruin!
They are jealous of our power.
They care neither for the South nor the North.
They hate both.'[10]"

Fortunately, wiser heads ruled in Great Britain, unlike those unfortunately ruling the CSA.

And if pigs could fly, then we'd debate their aerodynamic qualities, but since they can't, we won't.

False analogies are another thing you do a lot.

So Deep South Fire-Eaters declared their secessions, as they clearly explained, to protect their "peculiar institution" of slavery -- that's the fact, not even debatable.

It is of course debatable, but it is irrelevant to the larger principles involved in the entire conflict.

Of course you refocus on Slavery, and not on the more important principle involved. Slavery was legal in that time period. People had a right to be independent of a Union that no longer suited their interests.

Where does your moral argument come into the question? You don't have a right to prevent independence from people who want it. It does not matter that you consider them immoral. They have that right non the less.

But Lincoln never recognized those states as having lawfully left the Union.

According to the Declaration of Independence, it is not relevant whether the King recognizes the God given right to independence. The right remains regardless.

Northern economic interests had nothing to do with it.

It was nothing but. Let me show you that map again.

Again, what happens to New York when 80% of that pile moves to Charleston and Savanna?

Imagine most of that trade represented by those tariffs being taken away from New York and given to Charleston.

Easily a financial hyper crises in New England. Well worth starting a war to prevent.

Fortunately, wiser heads ruled in Great Britain, unlike those unfortunately ruling the CSA.

No one would have predicted that a rational man would kill 620,000 people to impose his will. In light of the unpredictable insanity they were dealing with on the other side, none of their behavior could be considered unwise.

They encountered a "black swan" event. Someone who was willing to drench the entire nation in blood to prevent other people from leaving his control.

Of course his masters in the Wealthy circles of New England probably would brook no other outcome than that their money streams continue. They could buy their own way out of the conflict for 1/3rd the price of a slave, that is, if anyone ever had the gall to suggest they needed to.