Prager’s pal Joe Carter is making the usual mistake of conflating the reason for secession with the reason for the Civil War.
Those who say that Lincoln fought the Civil War to bring an end to slavery find themselves using an argument similar to those who compare Lincoln to Lenin. That argument being that Lincoln ruled by force, gaining his goal by using the army to kill those who objected. People rarely think about that claim because in their mind the morality of ending slavery justifies whatever Lincoln did, including the slaughter and destruction resulting from the Civil War.
But Lincoln solved the mystery of his reason for the war by repeatedly saying that his goal in waging it was to force the seceding States back into the Union. He declared the secession to be treason and rebellion, the same as the English king had done 90 years earlier.
Lincoln didn’t claim the right to burn out and kill Americans who engaged in slavery. He did believe that he had the right to use violence to prevent States from leaving the Union. Preserving the Union was his causus belli. People ought to read his own words. He was using the army in the same fashion that Buchanan had in the Utah War just four years earlier, to compel obedience to federal law.
Abner Doubleday
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24972/24972-h/24972-h.htm
Mr. Greeley was at this time the head of the Republican party, and one of the great leaders of Northern opinion. His immense services in rousing the public mind to the evils of slavery can not be overestimated, but some of his views were too hastily formed and promulgated. In this crisis of our history he injured the cause he afterward so eloquently advocated by publishing an opinion, on the 9th of November, that the South had a perfect right to secede whenever a majority thought proper to do so; and, in another communication, he stated that the Union could not be pinned together with bayonets. General Scott was also at one time in favor of letting the "wayward sisters depart in peace;" and I have heard on good authority that at least one member of the Cabinet and one leading general, appalled by the magnitude of the conflict, were willing to consent to a separation, provided the Border States would go with the North.
Greeley's article went farther than this, for it seemed to favor a simple severance of the North and the South. This was not only a virtual abandonment of the rights of Northern men who had invested their capital in the Southern States, but it amounted to giving up all the sea-coast and magnificent harbors south of New Jersey, including Chesapeake Bay. It was expressing a willingness to surrender the mouth of the Mississippi, the commerce of the great North-west, and the Capitol at Washington, to the control of a foreign nation, hostile to us from the very nature of its institutions. In fact, it was a proposition to commit national suicide. The new Northern republic would have been three thousand miles long, and only one hundred miles wide, in the vicinity of Wheeling. A country of such a peculiar shape could not, as every military man knows, have been successfully defended, and must inevitably have soon broken up into small confederacies. We objected, with reason, to the formation of a European monarchy in far-off Mexico, but the proposed separation would have created a powerful slave empire, with its northern border within eighteen miles of Philadelphia. Once firmly established there and along the Ohio, the Southern army could have burned Cincinnati from the opposite shore, and have penetrated to Lake Erie by a single successful battle and march, permanently severing the East from the West.
"The first indication of actual danger came from Richmond, Virginia, in the shape of urgent inquiries as to the strength of our defenses, and the number of available troops in the harbor. These questions were put by a resident of that city named Edmund Ruffin; an old man, whose later years had been devoted to the formation of disunion lodges, and who became subsequently noted for firing the first gun at Fort Sumter. His love of slavery amounted to fanaticism. When the cause of the Rebellion became hopeless, he refused to survive it, and committed suicide.
The seizure of Castle Pinckney, on the afternoon of the 27th, was the first overt act of the Secessionists against the sovereignty of the United States. As already stated, it was ordered by Governor Pickens, on his own responsibility, without the concurrence of the Legislature. The latter, indeed, positively declined to sanction the measure. At 2 p.m. the Washington Light Infantry and Meagher Guards, both companies of Colonel J.J. Petigru's rifle regiment, embarked, under command of that officer, on board the Niña, and steamed down to the little island upon which the Castle is situated. When they arrived in front of the main gates they found them closed; whereupon they applied scaling-ladders, and with eager, flushed faces made their way to the top of the wall. The excitement was needless, for there was no one there to resist them, the only fighting-men present being Lieutenant R.K. Meade, of the engineers, and Ordnance-sergeant Skillen, who resided there with his family, and who was in charge of the work. Meade, himself a Virginian, had a sharp colloquy with Petigru, and expressed himself in severe terms in relation to this treasonable assault."
Slavery did not cause the first shots to be fired, but did have a role in secession. Was war a necessary consequence of secession...of course not.
On the 4th of February, 1861, the Confederate Congress, met at Montgomery and completed their secession movement by adopting their own constitution.
This ended the slavery problem for the Union states and all territories.
The 27 Union states all had stable legislatures and courts. Their commerce was continuing and there was business as usual. In Boston and New York, ships were sailing their regular routes to Europe, and many continued their commerce with Southern ports. Newspapers were printing, banks were lending, legislators were occupied, roads and canals were open, and the Federal government was operating.
On March 2, the Morrill Tariff was signed into law raising the taxation rate to 37.5%. This effectively tripled the taxation rate on imported goods.
The US Treasury had on deposit $6,000,000—enough to finance the government for a month and a half. Tariff revenue financed practically the entire government.
Income from the imports of goods purchased with the proceeds of the sales of Southern goods were now ceased. To pay for normal operating expenses, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase increased the national debt to over $80,000,000, and was borrowing more.
On March 11, the Confederacy published its tariff rates. The average tariff rate to be collected on dutiable goods was 13.3%.
News reached the North that the Confederacy was enacting the much lower tariff. This led the New York Herald to say:
“The effect of these two tariffs, then, upon our trade with the best, and most reliable part of the country will most disastrously be felt in all the Northern cities. We learn that even now some of the largest houses in the Southern trade in this city, who have not already failed, are preparing to wind up their affairs and abandon business entirely”.
A few weeks later, the results of the secession and the impact on trade were revealed in the Richmond Dispatch:
“The total amount of imports at the port of New York for the week ending on the 18th, was $2,328,479; for the same week in 1860, $5,517,58" .
This was a decrease of 57%.
An article in the Charleston Mercury described the early effects of secession on the business interests:
“The business men of Charleston are already beginning to reap the advantages of the independent position which the South has taken.
“The results of the last few weeks have demonstrated commercial prosperity. Business of all kinds has increased at an amazing pace; customers are thronging the city from all quarters of the South, and the indications are that Charleston is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the Confederate States.
“In dry goods and fancy goods the operations have been very large, and the purchasers, we are informed, are principally composed of those who used to patronize New York.”
Without Southern states’ exports and Southern customers, more than 70% of the Northern import market ceased to exist.
Domestic and overseas financiers, having already loaned large amounts to the government at extremely high interest rates for the prior 4 years were not likely to continue to lend money to a government that was losing most of its revenue.
A Washington newspaper reported that a meeting of over 100 New York City merchants revealed great concern on the tariff issue and its destruction of trade and legitimate business. The newspaper said that:
“It is a singular fact that the merchants who, two months ago were fiercely shouting ‘no coercion’ now are for anything rather than inaction.”
That is when Northern businessmen and politicians began to visit Lincoln’s office.
By mid-March, President Lincoln had seen a number of governors of the Northern and Western States. Among these men were Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island, Governor Oliver Perry Morton of Indiana, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts, Governor Andrew Curtain of Pennsylvania, and Governor Austin Blair of Michigan.
They offered him money and militia to coerce the South.
Despite all of this, the country was not at war and the concern with slavery disappeared from debate.
3/22/1861 The economic editor of the New York Times said,
“At once shut down every Southern port, destroy its commerce, and bring utter ruin on the Confederate States.”
On April 4, the Lincoln government supplied this quote to the press:
“It would be contrary to the spirit of the American Government to use armed force to subjugate the South. If the people of the South want to stay out of the Union, if they desire independence, let them have it.”
...while giving this order:
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, D. C., April 4, 1861.
Lieutenant Colonel HENRY L. SCOTT, A. D. C., New York:
SIR: This letter will be landed to you by Captain G. V. Fox... He is charged by high authority here with the command of an expedition, under cover of certain ships of war, whose object is to re-enforce Fort Sumter.
To embark with Captain Fox you will cause a detachment of recruits, say about two hundred, to be immediately organized at Fort Columbus, with a competent number of officers, arms, ammunition, and subsistence. A large surplus of the latter-indeed, as great as the vessels of the expedition can take-with other necessaries, will be needed for the augmented garrison of Fort Sumter.
Consult Captain Fox and Major Eaton on the subject, and give all necessary orders in my name to fit out the expedition, except that the hiring of vessels will be left to others.
Some fuel must be shipped. Oil, artillery implements, fuses, cordage, slow-march, mechanical levers, and gins, &c., should also be put on board.
Consult, also, if necessary, confidentially, Colonel Tompkins and Major Thornton.
Respectfully, yours,
WINFIELD SCOTT.
The war began because of failure of the Republican led government to require Lincoln to observe the Constitution.
To reiterate and summarize this long thread:
Saying that “Slavery did not cause the first shots to be fired” is a red herring - kinda like saying chewing tobacco did not cause the first shots to be fired”. Slavery was the sine qua non - the essential element without which the Civil War would never have occurred. War wasn’t a necessary consequence of secession...but it was an inevitable one directly attributable to the actions of the insurrectionists.
From December 1860 through April 1861 the Confederacy continually provoked war through dozens of seizures by force of major Federal properties — forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. — threats against and firings on Union officials.
In April 1861 the Confederacy started war at Union Fort Sumter through a military assault resulting in some Union deaths and forcing the remainder to surrender.
On May 6, 1861 the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States and sent military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
All this happened before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.
Of course, none of this ended the slavery problem for the Union states and all territories - rather it intensified the conflict between slaver and Free Man everywhere on the continent.
The war began because of failure of the Dhimmicrat Slaver Fire-eaters to observe the Constitution.