I strongly agree with your second sentence. They were stupid to rebel.
Strongly disagree with your first sentence. For a cause that never had a chance, they came remarkably close to succeeding on several different occasions.
It’s my personal opinion that had any other man been in the White House, the country would have split up.
“For a cause that never had a chance, they came remarkably close to succeeding on several different occasions.”
They never had a chance because of the ENORMOUS manufacturing disparity between north and south.
These numbers are from the 1860 census.
Pig-iron production in Fiscal Year 1860 (short tons).
United States = 987,559
Pennsylvania = 580,049
Ohio = 117,754
New York = 74,645
New Jersey = 51,675
Kentucky = 33,471
Maryland = 30,500
Tennessee = 22,302
Missouri = 18,000
Vermont = 13,700
Michigan = 13,700
Connecticut = 11,800
Virginia = 11,645
Wisconsin = 2,500
Alabama = 1,742
Illinois = 1,300
Georgia = 1,100
Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Michigan and Connecticut produced 87% of the nation’s pig-iron.
The same disparity existed for production of coal, textiles, copper, timber, wheat, milk, cloth, paper, boots and shoes.
On 1 June 1860 the the country possessed 128,300 industrial establishments. Of these, 110,274 were located in states that remained in the Union.