“When the Southern states walked out of the Union they repudiated responsibility for their share of the national debt, walked away from national obligations, stole every bit of federal property they could get their hands on, and were in a position to cut off large sections of the country from access to the sea. All of which caused financial and economic harm to those states who stayed. And in your view all the remaining states could do is sit back and take it.”
You’re joking, right? Let’s take your comments in order. (1) The South, wih a smaller population, paid more into the fedeal treasury than the North, yet the vast majority of tax revenues were spent on Northern projects and Northern interests; thus the Southern states got screwed. (2) Stole what? They paid for every federal installation except Sumter. (3) Cut off large parts of the country from access to the sea? I know you surely must be joking with that one. What about Philadelphia? New York? The vaunted New England seafaring tradition? The Confederacy’s navy was a pathetic shadow of the Union navy, and hardly made a dent on Northern shipping interests (unlike the Union blockades of Mobile and New Orleans and even Galveston).
The fact of the matter is your hero Lincoln took secession as a personal insult, and being the petty man he was he could not abide such a blow to his ego, and decided to plunge half of the North American continent (sans Canada) into a bloody and costly war. The Confederacy DID NOT want such a war, but when Lincoln over-reacted and called for the invasion of the South it had no choice but TO fight.
Interesting, but untrue. In the year prior to the rebellion well over 90% of all federal revenue was collected in Northern ports. The South actually paid a disproportionately small percentage into the federal coffers. Alexander Stephens put the total paid by the North at 75% and it's clear he was inflating the Southern contribution by a considerable amount.
Stole what? They paid for every federal installation except Sumter.
They paid for nothing. They appropriated everything they could get their hands on - forts, arsenals, mints, ships, you name it - without compensation of any kind.
Cut off large parts of the country from access to the sea? I know you surely must be joking with that one. What about Philadelphia? New York? The vaunted New England seafaring tradition?
What about Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, and other states which accessed foreign markets via the Mississippi?
The fact of the matter is your hero Lincoln took secession as a personal insult, and being the petty man he was he could not abide such a blow to his ego, and decided to plunge half of the North American continent (sans Canada) into a bloody and costly war.
The fact of the matter is that it was Jefferson Davis who chose war over Sumter, who launched the bloody, costly conflict over Sumter that led to the death of the confederacy and the destruction of the South. Lincoln didn't kill the confederacy. It committed suicide on April 13, 1861.
Yet another of those southern myths that doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. Here's The Annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the state of the finances for 1860. It shows all the expenditures of the federal government for the previous year. I defy you to identify the "vast majority" of expenditures going to benefit the north.