Oh, but they did, in Deep South states like South Carolina and Mississippi, which were #1 and #2 to secede, and they clearly said in their Reasons for Secession documents that protecting slavery was not just their biggest reason, but their only real reason.
In those two states nearly 50% of families owned slaves meaning that virtually everybody was close family & friends to slave-holders and therefore very concerned about their interests.
FLT-bird: "or by the feeling that they were being consistently taken advantage of and bilked out of a lot of money every year.
That I find more likely because the economics would have been felt by everybody in the South whether they owned any slaves or not."
Claims that they were being somehow "bilked" are simply false, and hard to argue when Deep South planters and their white neighbors were then, on average, the most prosperous people ever on Earth.
FLT-bird: "That said, the Northern states did go out of their way to avoid enforcing the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution and thus did break one of the terms of the deal they made with the Southern states when the Constitution was ratified. "
Possibly, in some cases, but remember the Compromise of 1850 made the Federal government, not Northern states, responsible for enforcing Fugitive Slave laws.
Furthermore, the deeper South you traveled, the less of a "problem" were fugitive slaves, such that those who seemed to complain most about it had virtually zero "problem" with it.
FLT-bird: "Unilateral secession is the right of each state and this was entirely in keeping with the original intent of the States when they ratified the constitution."
Utterly false, a lie from the time first uttered and not made any more true with its constant repetition.
In fact, our Founders recognized only true necessity (as in 1776) and mutual consent (as in 1788) as legitimate reasons for disunion.
Neither condition existed in late 1860 & early 1861.
No Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declaration of secession at pleasure, meaning in the absence of absolute necessity.
And yet that's just what Confederates began to do in late 1860.
Oh, but they did, in Deep South states like South Carolina and Mississippi, which were #1 and #2 to secede, and they clearly said in their Reasons for Secession documents that protecting slavery was not just their biggest reason, but their only real reason.
In those two states nearly 50% of families owned slaves meaning that virtually everybody was close family & friends to slave-holders and therefore very concerned about their interests.
Oh but they didn’t. South Carolina attached the Address of Robert Barnwell Rhett to their declaration of causes which went on at length about the grossly unequal tariffs and federal government expenditures even though this was not unconstitutional and refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution was unconstitutional and provided the basis for saying the Northern states had violated the compact.
According to the 1860 US Census, South Carolina had 26,701 slave owners out of a total free population of 301,302 or 8.86% of all free people owned slaves. Mississippi had 30,943 slave owners out of a total free population of 354,674 or 8.72% of all free people owned slaves.
Nope. Your denial is simply false. Yes the South was indeed prosperous. That’s not surprising given that it was the #1 supplier of Cotton which was a hugely important commodity in the early to mid 19th century. It was also a major supplier of Tobacco, Indigo, Rice, Sugar, and other valuable commodities. It would have been far more wealthy had it not been economically exploited by the Northern states to pay for their industrialization.
Various Northern states enacted various laws to prevent compliance with federal agents attempt’s to recapture escaped slaves. You are right that it was less of a real problem for the states in the Deep South. It was more a means of saying that the Northern states had broken the deal (which they did). Their real grievance was not over escaped slaves, it was over tariffs that were very harmful to their economic interests and unequal federal government expenditures favoring Northern states with the money from tariffs paid overwhelmingly by Southerners. But no matter how much they hated that, it was not unconstitutional. Refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause was.
Nope. A lie on your part to deny it.
And yet that’s just what Confederates began to do in late 1860.
It is for each state to determine necessity and not for anybody else. Also it is completely false to say no Founder ever supported unilateral secession. I have provided numerous quotes showing this to be false already.