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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.

FLT-bird: "Davis was not the one who sent a heavily armed flotilla to another country’s territorial waters."

Lincoln was not the one who threatened & launched war over a resupply mission to Union troops in a Union fort:

Confederate demands for Union surrender: that's war.
Confederate firing on Union ships (i.e., Harriet Lane): that's war.
Confederate firing on Fort Sumter: that's war.
Union resupplying Union troops in a Union fort: not war.

FLT-bird: "Davis is not the one who fired first at Pensacola."

The only Union firing at Fort Barrancas came in response to secessionists' unlawful attempts to seize the fort by force.
Union troops there attacked no one.

FLT-bird: "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."

No they didn't, far from it, from Day One Confederates continuously provoked war by seizing Union property, threatening Union officials, firing on Union ships and demanding Union surrenders.
In short, Confederates were cruisin' for a bruisin'.

FLT-bird: "It was Lincoln who insisted on war."

Total rubbish.

FLT-bird: "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."

Exactly right, Virginians believed they could not secede until their condition of "injury or oppression" was met.
That's why Davis needed war at Fort Sumter, to convert Virginia and with it the entire Upper South.

For that exact reason Lincoln didn't want war, but simply could not abandon Union troops in Fort Sumter without some attempt to resupply them.

FLT-bird: "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..."

Right: Rhett's "Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States"
And you pretend it had nothing to do with slavery?

Rhett used the word "tariff" exactly twice, both times in passing, i.e., "There was then no tariff -- no negro fanaticism."
Rhett does use the word "tax" 23 times, nearly all in relation to the Founders' "no taxation without representation".
He claims that even though Southern Democrats ruled in Washington, DC, since 1800, now they would be in the minority, thus suddenly deprived of representation, and everybody knows that when Democrats lose political power they go berserk, smash things & hurt people.
It's in the nature of being a Democrat.
In Rhett's mind it was: rule or ruin, my way or F.U. USA.
By contrast, Rhett used words like slave, abolition & institution some 45 times, explicitly explaining the threat to them represented by Northern States.

Important to remember that South Carolina's secession produced three principle documents:

Ordnance or Secession, which provides no reasons or "wherefores".
Reasons for Secession, which explains the threat to slavery as perceived by South Carolinians.
Rhett's address to other Slave-holding states, which expands the reasons to include taxes as well as slavery.
Taxes Rhett claims were paid by Southerners to benefit the North.
Rhett's claim is false.

Despite Rhett's address, Upper South states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas) refused to secede when the reasons were only about slavery or taxes.
For them secession needed a war of "oppression or injury", so that is what Jefferson Davis gave them at Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "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"

Right, slavery, which Georgia mentioned or referred to 40 times in their 3,300 word document -- in all but three of the 14 paragraphs.
Complaints about "bounties" for "fishing smacks" are restricted just one paragraph.
The Georgia Reasons for Secession document does not mention tariffs or taxes.

FLT-bird: "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)."

But slavery was not a "wedge issue" until people like Rhett made it one by supporting slavery where it wasn't wanted and then splitting apart their national Democrat party over the issue of slavery.
So many Northern Democrats normally sympathetic to slavery in the South came to believe that voting Democrat would re-impose slavery in their own states.

FLT-bird: "Then you claim that Southern concerns were satisfied in 1846!"

No I simply quoted what they said:

"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..."

FLT-bird: "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."

But the North never "voted as a block" until Southern Fire Eaters like Rhett split apart their national Democrat party, making a vote for Northern Democrat Douglas a wasted vote.
Even Northern Republicans didn't vote against slavery in the South, but only in territories which didn't want it.
As for "enrichment at the South's expense", that is pure unadulterated nonsense.

FLT-bird quoting: "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."

Right, the questions forced on them by aggressive slave-power promoters like Rhett.

FLT-bird: "On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the 'infamous Morrill bill.' "

Which had been defeated by Democrats in 1860 and would be again in 1861 had Dems remained united in the November elections.
But Fire Eaters like Rhett & Toombs made certain that didn't happen.

FLT-bird: "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."

Of course Texans would blame Lee, since Lee was the finest officer the Union army had, in command of the largest contingent of Union troops anywhere -- Texas.
And Lee failed in Texas.
Just as he later failed in West Virginia, in North Carolina and in Virginia.
A truly remarkable record!

FLT-bird: "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."

Of course the South got its fair share and we know this for certain because Southerners ruled in Washington, DC, and made certain their interests were addressed.
How could that not be when Southern Democrats ruled the majority party the vast majority of time between 1800 and 1861??
So claims otherwise are just stuff & nonsense.

For actual Federal spending by region, see this link which summarizes data from John van Deusen’s 1928 book, "Economic bases of Disunion in South Carolina".
If you exclude pensions, the numbers are almost exactly 50% each to slave & non-slave states.
And this despite non-slave states outnumbering slave-states in white population about two-to-one.

FLT-bird: "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)"

Sure, it was a propaganda campaign to make old Joseph Goebbels proud, but it was all a Big Lie.
The true numbers show that by 1860 any previous imbalances had been long since corrected.

FLT-bird: "Texas also complains that the Northern states did nothing about those who had openly financed John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry...
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."

More false propaganda.
In fact, the Federal government sent its best officers (RE Lee, T Jackson) to command the troops which put down Brown's rebellion, captured Brown & company, then tried & hanged them for treason.
As for the "secret six" who backed Brown, most fled the country, one was arrested, one checked himself into an insane asylum and only one, Higginson, remained free.
During the Civil War, Higginson commanded a black regiment of Union soldiers.

FLT-bird: "Plainly it was not “about” slavery."

In what way were any of Brown's actions "not about slavery"??

FLT-bird: "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."

We've already reviewed the first four "Reasons for secession" documents and established they are almost exclusively about slavery.
So you trotted out a fifth document by Rhett, which does mention taxes and compares the US to Britain in 1776.
But even Rhett devoted twice the attention to slavery (45 mentions) that he did to taxes (23 mentions).
And Rhett says nothing about the Morrill Tariff.

So even when all gussied up with a lot of hokum talk about "despotism" and "plunder and oppression", Rhett's number one concern, by a factor of two to one, was still slavery.

FLT-bird: "a complete fantasy on your part.
Not only did Lincoln 'not oppose' the Corwin Amendment, he orchestrated it."

That fantasy is all yours.
Lincoln "orchestrated" nothing regarding Corwin's amendment.

FLT-bird: "Whether he personally thought it changed anything or not was irrelevant.
It would have expressly enshrined slavery in the constitution and protected it."

In Lincoln's mind, as he said, slavery was already protected in the Constitution, so Corwin changed nothing.

FLT-bird: "Slavery would have been expressly protected and this protection would have been irrevocable without the consent of the slaveholding states."

Just as it was in 1860.

FLT-bird: "Yet they turned that down.
Why?
Because it wasn’t “about” slavery.
Not for them..."

Sure, I "get" your argument that slavery was "just the excuse, not the real reason" for declarations of secession.
But you have problems with that argument, including:

If slavery was "just the excuse" that makes all the "Reasons for Secession" documents a Big Lie, because they said slavery was the main, if not the only, reason.
No doubt some Southerners also had other reasons, but those "other reasons" were not felt strongly enough by anything close to a majority needed to pass declarations of secession.
Only perceived threats against slavery were strong enough motivators to convince majorities to support secession.
Once secession was a fait accompli Confederate leadership had no interest in reconciliation, slavery or no slavery.
At that point it became an question of their survival, pure & simple.
They were not going to reunite short of military defeat and Unconditional Surrender.

FLT-bird: "and certainly not for the Northern states who were only too willing to offer up that bargaining chip right from the start."

All Northerners understood that slavery was the price of Union in 1787.
Without slavery there could have been no United States in 1788 or 1860.
So Northerners gave up nothing in 1861 by offering to make slavery more explicit.
But once Jefferson Davis launched & declared his Civil War against the United States, the military advantages of emancipation became clear, and with them the moral imperative for abolition became, for the first time, doable.