[PeaRidge]

Well, good luck. On one of these CW threads years ago I made reference to the Ordinances of Secession trying to convince the diehards why the Southern states seceded.

Your reference to the Ordinances of Secession is a fallacy. They do not say what you think they say.

Every OOS made it plain slavery was the main reason they were seceding.

Actually none of the Ordinances make that statement.

For one example, here is the Ordinance of Secession from South Carolina....can you point out where it mentions slavery?

.......................South Carolina.................

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved. Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.

Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 1.

It looks like you are confusing the official Ordinances of Secession that were legal statements adopted by popular referendum in 11 states, with the Causes of Secession published by four states after seceding from the Union. All four were essentially written explanations having no authority and expressing nothing more than the opinions of the authors.

They were essentially of no more importance than newspaper articles.

They do not document what you wish that they do.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

All four were essentially written explanations having no authority and expressing nothing more than the opinions of the authors.

While I understand that you find them an embarrassment that undermines your entire position, the fact is that they were official statements of the secession conventions, framed and voted on by those conventions.