So let's start here:
FLT-bird: "THEN Lincoln chose to start a war.
THEN 4 and arguably 5 more states seceded.
Obviously they were not seceding over slavery but instead over the principle that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed as had been stated in the Declaration of Independence."
Obviously not over slavery, but following Virginia's lead and Virginia could only declare secession after its Constitution signing statement conditions were met:
"...powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..."
Jefferson Davis well knew that Virginians believed they could not declare secession until that condition was met -- "injury and oppression" -- and in April, 1861, it had not been.
That's why Davis needed war at Fort Sumter -- it moved Virginia from Union to Confederate and along with Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas.
It might even bring in Kentucky, Missouri & Maryland, but regardless, the payoff for Davis from starting war at Fort Sumter was beyond huge, it was transformative.
It almost doubled the Confederacy's size & population, adding vital manufacturing capacities, and making Civil War a serious contest.
So, "Injury and oppression" is what Davis provoked at Fort Sumter, and it won him the entire Upper South.
FLT-bird: "Meanwhile of the 7 original seceding Southern states only 4 issued declarations of causes.
Of those 3 of them listed tariffs and unequal federal expenditures along with some added complaints about the failure to provide border security by Texas. "
No, ,none of those four mentioned either tariffs or taxes.
- South Carolina went first, December 24, 1860, and mentions at slavery length, nothing else.
- Mississippi came next in January 9, 1861, mentions only slavery, nothing else:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth..."
- Third was Georgia, January 29, 1861, and it does complain briefly about matters other than slavery:
"Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business...
The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors.
This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States."
First note here the word "mainly", it means that Southerners also received "bounties" to the degree they participated in those activities.
And actual data clearly shows the South got its "fair share" & more of Federal spending.
So, does anybody seriously suggest that after 70+ years, Georgia declared secession over "bounties" paid to fishing smacks or "protection" to manufacturers?
Indeed, Georgia fully admits:
"After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed.
It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy.
There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all."
Georgia admits that Southern concerns were satisfied in 1846!
All the rest of Georgia's long statement is devoted to slavery.
- Finally Texas, February 2, 1861, does complain that Robert E. Lee did a terrible job of protecting them against Indians and "banditti", so doubtless they were glad to see Lee move back to Virginia.
Texas also complains that Northerners:
"...have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance."
Of course that's bogus, data shows the South got its fair share & more of Federal spending.
All the rest of Texas' long statement is devoted to slavery:
Abolitionists "demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."
So for most, slavery was the only reason and for all, slavery was the most important reason.
It was all about slavery.
FLT-bird: "This is a PC Revisionist lie.
The Lincoln administration and the Northern dominated Congress was only too happy to offer the Corwin Amendment which would have expressly enshrined protection of slavery effectively forever in the US Constitution."
No your Revisionist lie is to imply that slavery was not the single greatest reason, indeed the only reason for most, why the first seven states declared secession.
As for the proposed Corwin Amendment, Lincoln's opinion was that it only restated what the Constitution already, in effect, said.
Corwin changed nothing, in Lincoln's opinion, so he did not oppose it.
But by March of 1861 the secession states were uninterested in compromises to restore the Union.
What they wanted most was for the Upper South & Border states to join their Confederacy, and for that they needed Virginia, and Virginia would only secede in the event of war.
Hence Jefferson Davis' assault on Fort Sumter.
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That’s why Davis needed war at Fort Sumter — it moved Virginia from Union to Confederate and along with Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas.
It might even bring in Kentucky, Missouri & Maryland, but regardless, the payoff for Davis from starting war at Fort Sumter was beyond huge, it was transformative.
It almost doubled the Confederacy’s size & population, adding vital manufacturing capacities, and making Civil War a serious contest.
So, “Injury and oppression” is what Davis provoked at Fort Sumter, and it won him the entire Upper South.
Davis was not the one who sent a heavily armed flotilla to another country’s territorial waters. Davis is not the one who fired first at Pensacola. The original 7 seceding states would have been more than happy to go their own way without ever firing any shots. They tried to do just that. It was Lincoln who insisted on war. Virginia had voted to remain in. They could have voted to leave earlier but they chose to stay....in a union based on consent rather than force.
No, ,none of those four mentioned either tariffs or taxes.
South Carolina went first, December 24, 1860, and mentions at slavery length, nothing else.
Mississippi came next in January 9, 1861, mentions only slavery, nothing else:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth...”
Third was Georgia, January 29, 1861, and it does complain briefly about matters other than slavery:
“Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business...
The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors.
This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States.”
First note here the word “mainly”, it means that Southerners also received “bounties” to the degree they participated in those activities.
And actual data clearly shows the South got its “fair share” & more of Federal spending.
So, does anybody seriously suggest that after 70+ years, Georgia declared secession over “bounties” paid to fishing smacks or “protection” to manufacturers?
Indeed, Georgia fully admits:
“After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed.
It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy.
There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.”
Georgia admits that Southern concerns were satisfied in 1846!
All the rest of Georgia’s long statement is devoted to slavery.
Finally Texas, February 2, 1861, does complain that Robert E. Lee did a terrible job of protecting them against Indians and “banditti”, so doubtless they were glad to see Lee move back to Virginia.
Texas also complains that Northerners:
“...have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.”
Of course that’s bogus, data shows the South got its fair share & more of Federal spending.
All the rest of Texas’ long statement is devoted to slavery:
Abolitionists “demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.”
So for most, slavery was the only reason and for all, slavery was the most important reason.
It was all about slavery.
No.
I already outlined the EXTENSIVE LENGTHS to which the address of Robert Barnwell Rhett which was attached to South Carolina’s Declaration and which was sent out along with it, explained the economic grievances the Southern states had - namely that they were being economically exploited and no longer had the votes in Congress to protect themselves from being exploited even more than they already had been. They went on at length about this even though it was not unconstitutional.
Next you try to claim Georgia only talks “Briefly” about matters other than slavery? ROTFLMAO! They went on for quite some time about it laying out the specifics of various subsidies to Northern interests were paid by the appropriations laid on mostly Southern owned imports AND how this exploitative economic policy was tied to the slavery issue....namely that slavery was being used as what we would today call a wedge issue to unite Northerners to vote in a block to economically exploit the Southern states. (Rhett went on about this at considerable length as well).
Then you claim that Southern concerns were satisfied in 1846!....but then you claim the rest was “devoted to slavery”. No. It was devoted to the sectional dispute between the regions and how the slavery issue was used to try to unite the North against the South in order to vote as a block for its own enrichment at the South’s expense.
to wit:
“All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity.”
On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the “infamous Morrill bill.” The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which “the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists.” Toombs described this coalition as “the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South.”
Next you dishonestly try to claim that Texas somehow blamed Lee for the failure to provide adequate border security when of course it was the federal government that was required to do so and which consistently refused to provide adequate troops and resources as had been required by Texas’ accession treaty with the United States.
Then you dishonestly try to claim that the South got its “fair share” of federal appropriations. Even Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian admitted it had not gotten its fair share. 20% is hardly a fair share to a region that was paying the bulk of the tariff.
From 1789 to 1845, the North received five times the amount of money that was spent on southern projects. More than twice as many lighthouses were built in the North as in the South, and northern states received twice the southern appropriations for coastal defense.
In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Succession Charles Adams
“Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett’s and Hammond’s much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests.” (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, p. 332)
Texas also complains that the Northern states did nothing about those who had openly financed John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry. Gosh....how did the US Govt regard and treat people who financed Al Qaeda in the wake of its attack on the US? How did it regard governments of other countries which harbored those who sponsored terrorists which had attacked it? You can claim that’s “about” slavery. Its really about if not state sponsored terrorism then at least state excused terrorism sponsored by their citizens.
Plainly it was not “about” slavery.
No your Revisionist lie is to imply that slavery was not the single greatest reason, indeed the only reason for most, why the first seven states declared secession.
No, it is your PC Revisionist lie to claim it is. Slavery could have been much better protected within the US as Lincoln and several others openly said. Slavery could have been enshrined in the constitution effectively forever had the Southern states simply agreed to return. They did not.
As for the proposed Corwin Amendment, Lincoln’s opinion was that it only restated what the Constitution already, in effect, said.
Corwin changed nothing, in Lincoln’s opinion, so he did not oppose it.
But by March of 1861 the secession states were uninterested in compromises to restore the Union.
What they wanted most was for the Upper South & Border states to join their Confederacy, and for that they needed Virginia, and Virginia would only secede in the event of war.
Hence Jefferson Davis’ assault on Fort Sumter.
This is a complete fantasy on your part. Not only did Lincoln “not oppose” the Corwin Amendment, he orchestrated it. Whether he personally thought it changed anything or not was irrelevant. It would have expressly enshrined slavery in the constitution and protected it. Considering 15 states at the time still had slavery it would have taken 45 more states voting in favor of another constitutional amendment to overturn it. That’s 60 states total. That’s 10 more than are even in the country today. Slavery would have been expressly protected and this protection would have been irrevocable without the consent of the slaveholding states.
Yet they turned that down. Why? Because it wasn’t “about” slavery. Not for them, and certainly not for the Northern states who were only too willing to offer up that bargaining chip right from the start.