Replies

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.

It was not merely a “supply mission” as you call it. It was a heavily armed flotilla of several warships and hundreds of troops. Nevermind the fact that the federals fired first at Ft Pickens in Pensacola in January of that year.

Sending a fleet of warships into another country’s territorial waters with hostile intent - that’s war.

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.

The fort sat on sovereign Florida territory and was being illegally held by federal troops....and they are the ones who fired first.

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’.

Again false. Federal troops illegally occupied installations on territory that belonged to the sovereign states.

Total rubbish.

Nope. Unvarnished truth. You just can’t handle it.

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.

No, its not that they believed they could not. It is that they chose not to. They could any time they wanted to. Lincoln deliberately provoked war and did so without the consent of Congress.

“Lincoln and the First Shot” (in Reassessing the Presidency, edited by John Denson), John Denson painstakingly shows how Lincoln maneuvered the Confederates into firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. As the Providence Daily Post wrote on April 13, 1861, “Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor” by reprovisioning Fort Sumter. On the day before that the Jersey City American Statesman wrote that “This unarmed vessel, it is well understood, is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South.” Lincoln’s personal secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, clearly stated after the war that Lincoln successfully duped the Confederates into firing on Fort Sumter. And as Shelby Foote wrote in The Civil War, “Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war.”

And you pretend it had nothing to do with slavery?

I didn’t say it had “nothing to do with” slavery. You said it was “all about” slavery. That is false.

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.

Rhett went on at length explaining how the Northern states saw fit to use their larger population and thus more representation in Washington DC to levy tariffs on the South that were very harmful to the Southern economy in order to serve their own interests AND that the Southern states did not have enough votes to prevent this exploitation. He explained how this was exactly the same as the situation the 13 colonies found themselves in when they seceded from the British Empire in 1776. But of course you knew that and were trying to obfuscate.

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.

South Carolina laid out the legal case for saying the Northern states violated the compact. That alone was sufficient. Even though it was not unconstitutional they attached Rhett’s Address in which he accurately laid out the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the Northern states via the tariff and via grossly unequal federal expenditures.

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.

Georgia laid out the legal case for accurately saying the Northern states violated the compact - namely, their refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. It also went on to talk about the grossly unequal expenditures and partisan sectional legislation which served to enrich the Northern states at the Southern states’ expense even though this was not unconstitutional.

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.

This is an outright lie. Rhett didn’t make slavery a wedge issue. Northern politicians and business interests did in order to unite Northern votes for a sectional party which would favor ruinously high protective tariffs to be levied on goods owned by Southern importers. It had the added benefit of raising more federal money the Northern states could then continue lavishing on themselves for more “public works” and corporate subsidies.

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...”

and you conveniently left out the next part where it explains how Northern protectionists then started using the slavery issue as a wedge issue to try to build enough political support to jack the tariffs back up again.

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.

They voted as a block for a high protective tariff. That was the central plank of the Republican party platform in 1860. The northern states had been enriching themselves at the Southern states’ expense since the beginning. The only debate was would they do so in a more modest way which had been the case after the Tariff of Abominations was repealed following the Nullification Crisis, or would they go for super high tariffs again and really dig their paws deeply into Southern wallets again. They opted for the latter. The Southern states had seen this before and had had enough.

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

Nope! It was pushed by Northern Protectionists like Abe Lincoln.

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.

It had passed the House in the Spring of the previous year. All that was needed was a little log rolling to pick off a vote or two in the Senate. That could easily be achieved by throwing in a sweetener like high tariffs on Hemp grown in one state or similar back room deals. That’s the way it always works in Washington DC. They were going to get it past the Senate and with a Pennsylvanian like Buchanan in the White House followed by Lincoln it was sure to get the president’s signature and become law. Everybody knew that.

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!

Yawn. A weak attempt to blame Lee due to your personal bitterness. The Federal government simply did not provide enough troops or resources as they had agreed to do when Texas joined the US. Texans understood the Northern states acting through the federal government were to blame and furthermore that they had failed to provide the promised border security out of spite,

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.

This is complete BS. The Southern states never had the population or representation of the Northern states. To claim they ran things despite being in the minority is patently absurd.

.” In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote:
The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097. Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097. Had the same amount been paid by the two sections in the constitutional ratio of their federal population, the South would have paid only $394,707,917, and the North $532,342,180. Therefore, the slaveholding States paid $316,492,083 more than their just share, and the free States as much less.

South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000.

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.

Complete BS. All the commentators at the time, as well as several Northern Newspapers, foreign commentators and Charles Adams all say otherwise. On your side you have one 1928 book.

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.

You neglected to mention 3 only briefly fled to Canada. Northern sympathizers prevented the arrest of one who had been apprehended by federal marshals by mob violence and got a sympathetic judge to issue a writ demanding his surrender. Another remained and was never arrested. So of the 6, none were arrested and that was due to the support of locals in Massachusetts as well as sympathetic local officials. Texas was absolutely right to say that Northerners sympathize with financial backers of terrorism directed against the South.

In what way were any of Brown’s actions “not about slavery”??

I was talking about the refusal of the Southern states to accept the Corwin Amendment and the subsequent war Lincoln started. Had it been “about” slavery, the Corwin amendment would have sufficed.

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.

We’ve already reviewed the 4 declarations of secession and reasons provided by the 4 states which issued them and determined that refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the constitution provided the legal basis for saying the Northern states had violated the compact. We have furthermore seen how 3 of those 4 had extensive economic grievances relating to tariffs and grossly unequal federal government expenditures while Texas added inadequate border security and supporting terrorism against Southerners to the list of abuses committed by the Northern states.

Next you desperately try to do a simple word count to claim Rhett’s #1 concern was slavery which is of course patently false. Here is another statement demonstrating this to be so:

“The great object of free governments is liberty. The great test of liberty in modern times, is to be free in the imposition of taxes, and the expenditure of taxes.... For a people to be free in the imposition and payment of taxes, they must lay them through their representatives.” Consequently, because they were being taxed without corresponding representation, the Southern States had been reduced to the condition of colonies of the North and thus were no longer free. The solution was determined by John Cunningham to exist only in independence:

The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city.

That fantasy is all yours.
Lincoln “orchestrated” nothing regarding Corwin’s amendment.

False Propaganda on your part. Read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s nauseating hagiography of Lincoln which was the basis for an equally sycophantic film a few years ago. She praises Lincoln for orchestrating it. Others have noted that he was pulling the strings on this as well.

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

WHat the Corwin Amendment did do was demonstrate conclusively that the Northern states were quite willing to protect slavery effectively forever in the Constitution and that the original 7 seceding states were obviously not motivated by fears over the protection of slavery because they indicated no willingness to return upon being offered the Corwin Amendment.

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.

It doesn’t make them a lie. The Northern states really had violated the compact by refusing to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. It wasn’t the original 7 seceding states’ primary motivation but it was clearly true and provided them the legal basis for saying the other side broke the agreement. This happens in business all the time. One side breaks a clause in the contract allowing the other side to claim breach and walk away even if that breach was not their primary motivation for walking away from the contract.

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.

Was it? Or was it the excuse they had been looking for to do what they wanted to do anyway since they saw a huge hike in the tariff coming and the northern population continuing to grow at a faster pace due to immigration? I think it was the latter. Slavery was something most white Southerners did not participate in.

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.

They simply did not want to remain in given that they felt they had been economically exploited and could look forward to nothing but even more egregious economic exploitation.

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.

Obviously slavery and protection of it was not the price of holding the union together in 1860. The Northern states tried to pay with that coin and it was rejected.

Oh and of course it was Lincoln who launched the war and for the same reason the Southern states wanted out - he and his corporate fatcat supporters needed their cash cow ie the Southern States to finance their huge tariffs and infrastructure projects and corporate subsidies. It was a war for empire and money. Foreign observers saw that quite clearly.

“For the contest on the part of the North is now undisguisedly for empire. The question of slavery is thrown to the winds. There is hardly any concession in its favor that the South could ask which the North would refuse provided only that the seceding states re-enter the Union.....Away with the pretence on the North to dignify its cause with the name of freedom to the slave!” London Quarterly Review 1862

“The contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.” London Times, November 7, 1861

Oh and let us not forget that at the same time and shortly thereafter the Federal government was busy ethnically cleansing and committing genocide against the Plains Indians to gobble up their land and resources. So much for moral imperatives.

FLT-bird: "Sending a fleet of warships into another country’s territorial waters with hostile intent - that’s war."

But regardless of whose country it was, there was no "hostile intent", it was a resupply mission with specific orders: no first use of force.
Equivalent then to resupplying or reinforcing our base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba today.
It was not an act of war and was actually irrelevant to Jefferson Davis' demand for Fort Sumter's surrender, under threat of military assault, which certainly was an act of war.

FLT-bird: "The fort sat on sovereign Florida territory and was being illegally held by federal troops....and they are the ones who fired first."

The January 8 incident happened two days before Florida declared secession and it involved, as DiogenesLamp pointed out: "the would-be attackers, a small group of drunken and rowdy locals, left as soon as the warning shot sounded — if there ever was one."

In other words, it had nothing -- repeat nothing -- to do with Civil War.

FLT-bird: "Again false.
Federal troops illegally occupied installations on territory that belonged to the sovereign states."

There is no law on any book anywhere in the world which says that a government's property becomes not its property just because some local citizens declare secession.
The US Constitution gives Congress -- and nobody else -- authority to dispose of Federal property.

FLT-bird: "Nope. Unvarnished truth. You just can’t handle it."

No, your posts are total fantasy, not a word of truth in them, so nothing for me to "handle".
Nice try though.

FLT-bird: "No, its not that they believed they could not.
It is that they chose not to.
They could any time they wanted to."

Clearly, on April 4, 1861, when Virginians voted against secession, they believed the reasons for secession as expressed by South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and Rhett's address were not adequate to justify Virginia's secession.
But after Jefferson Davis started war at Fort Sumter, most Virginians changed their minds... well, West Virginians did not.
Clearly civil war was the clincher for Virginians, where issues of slavery or tariffs, etc., had not been.

And one reason is that Virginia's Constitution signing statement requires "injury or oppression" before "withdrawing".

FLT-bird: "Lincoln deliberately provoked war and did so without the consent of Congress."

The only provocations for war came from Confederates' seizure of many Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- threatening of Union officials, firing at Union ships and forcing the surrender of Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "as Shelby Foote wrote in The Civil War, 'Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war.' "

But there was no "maneuvering" by Lincoln.
From Day One Confederates threatened & provoked war.
Lincoln merely gave them an opportunity to, as some would say: put their money where their mouth is.
And there was no "maneuvering" in that, since Lincoln only did what he must do to support Union troops in Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "I didn’t say it had 'nothing to do with' slavery.
You said it was “all about” slavery.
That is false."

So here's the truth "you just can't handle": by the words of secessionists themselves, even Robert Rhett's address, it was more about slavery than about all other issues combined.
And that's a fact, but you will never confess it, right?

FLT-bird: "Rhett went on at length explaining how the Northern states saw fit to use their larger population and thus more representation in Washington DC to levy tariffs on the South that were very harmful to the Southern economy in order to serve their own interests AND that the Southern states did not have enough votes to prevent this exploitation."

But what people like Rhett refused to confess was: until Fire Eaters like himself broke apart the national Democrat party in 1860 over slavery, "the South" had many friends & allies in the North, East and West, allies they could count on to support the South in any matters of importance.
That's precisely why & how Democrats ruled over Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.

So the number one blame for what Rhett complained about was: Rhett himself.
Think about it.

FLT-bird: "He [Rhett] explained how this was exactly the same as the situation the 13 colonies found themselves in when they seceded from the British Empire in 1776."

Ah, but in fact there was no similarity whatsoever -- none, zero, nada similarities -- because in 1776 Americans had zero representation in Parliament, none, while in 1860 Southern Democrats still controlled the majority in the Senate, the President and Supreme Court (i.e., Dred Scott).
And they would have continued in substantial control if people like Rhett himself had not broken up the national Democrat party over slavery (yes, that was "all about slavery") in 1860, thus throwing the election to "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans.

FLT-bird: "But of course you knew that and were trying to obfuscate."

Nothing to obfuscate, but a good many of your posts lead me to suspect that you truly don't know the real history and have been big-time victimized by pro-Confederate propaganda.

FLT-bird: "South Carolina laid out the legal case for saying the Northern states violated the compact.
That alone was sufficient."

So first of all, just so we're clear on this: that "legal case" was indeed "all about slavery", nothing else.
Second, that "legal case" was itself ludicrous since every condition it described had been tolerated by South Carolina for decades without secession.
There was nothing new in November of 1860 -- no new laws, no new "oppression", not even a new Congress yet.
And that's what makes those declarations of secession at pleasure.
Literally, in November 1860 there was no new material cause, and no old cause which had been previously considered necessary for secession.

FLT-bird: "Even though it was not unconstitutional they attached Rhett’s Address in which he accurately laid out the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the Northern states via the tariff and via grossly unequal federal expenditures."

But there was nothing "accurate" about such analysis.
Federal spending in 1860 was roughly equal, North & South, and tariffs were then about as low as they had ever been.
So Rhett's rhetoric was all just stuff & nonsense.

FLT-bird: "Georgia laid out the legal case for accurately saying the Northern states violated the compact - namely, their refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution."

A false case after the Compromise of 1850 made enforcement of Fugitive Slave laws a Federal not state responsibility.
And Federal government was ruled by Southern Democrats who could enforce Fugitive Slave provisions to their hearts desire.
Further, Georgia even more than South Carolina, had no legal standing to complain about Fugitive slaves since few if any could make it across at least four slave-catching states before reaching any kind of sanctuary in the North.

So it was all bogus!!

FLT-bird: "This is an outright lie.
Rhett didn’t make slavery a wedge issue.
Northern politicians and business interests did in order to unite Northern votes for a sectional party which would favor ruinously high protective tariffs to be levied on goods owned by Southern importers."

But in 1860 Democrats were still a majority in many Northern states, enough to have prevented alleged "ruinously high protective tariffs" had they remained united with Southern Democrats.
It was Fire Eaters like Rhett, Yancey, Avery, Wigfall, etc., who insisted the Democrat party must split rather than compromise on slavery.

1856 Presidential election, note that Democrats still enjoyed majorities in several important Northern states:

FLT-bird: "and you conveniently left out the next part where it explains how Northern protectionists then started using the slavery issue as a wedge issue to try to build enough political support to jack the tariffs back up again."

And yet, from the time of the Tariff of Abominations in 1828 until secession in 1861 Tariffs went steadily downwards.

Tariffs did not seriously increase until after Democrats walked out of Congress and declared war on the United States.

As for Republicans wedging slavery to raise tariffs -- Whigs & Republicans always favored protective tariffs, but slavery only became their "wedge issue" when Southern Democrats gave it to them, by splitting their national Democrat party.

FLT-bird: "They voted as a block for a high protective tariff.
That was the central plank of the Republican party platform in 1860."

Hardly, the 1860 Republican platform had 17 planks.
Most complained about Democrat malfeasance, four talked about slavery directly, one, #12, mentions import duties.

As for "block voting" -- in 1852 virtually all Northerners were Democrats, whose party was ruled by Southern Democrats:

So if you claim Northerners were "block voters" then they were block Democrats.
They only reluctantly, gradually, became Republicans when Southern Democrats drove them away with such new legal theories as the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision.

FLT-bird: "The northern states had been enriching themselves at the Southern states’ expense since the beginning.
The only debate was would they do so in a more modest way which had been the case after the Tariff of Abominations was repealed following the Nullification Crisis, or would they go for super high tariffs again and really dig their paws deeply into Southern wallets again.
They opted for the latter.
The Southern states had seen this before and had had enough."

So you keep saying, but Confederates in early 1860 all said otherwise.
They said protecting slavery was their chief, if not only, reason for secession.
Tariffs were not even mentioned by most.
And those who did mention it still spent far more time on slavery.

FLT-bird: "Nope! It was pushed by Northern Protectionists like Abe Lincoln."

Northerners cared far less about percentages of tariffs than they did about the threat of expanding slavery where they didn't want it.
And expanding slavery was what Democrats were pushing (i.e., Dred Scott) in 1860.
Sure, Republicans were the anti-slavery party, but not because they wanted higher tariffs (that's insane), but rather because they didn't want slavery in their states & territories.

FLT-bird: "It had passed the House in the Spring of the previous year.
All that was needed was a little log rolling to pick off a vote or two in the Senate. "

Morrill was blocked by Senate Democrats in 1860 and could not pass in 1861 until after secessionists walked out.
Had Southerners remained united with their Northern Democrat allies, they could have forced a compromise much more to their own liking.
Compromise... you remember that, right, "the art of the deal" etc., etc.??

FLT-bird: "Yawn.
A weak attempt to blame Lee due to your personal bitterness.
The Federal government simply did not provide enough troops or resources as they had agreed to do when Texas joined the US.
Texans understood the Northern states acting through the federal government were to blame and furthermore that they had failed to provide the promised border security out of spite,"

I have no "personal bitterness" towards RE Lee, none, zero.
"Personal bitterness" is you Lost Causers' stock in trade, we don't need it.

But... speaking of weak arguments, could any be weaker than yours?
Remember, in 1860 Federal government was ruled by Southerners, the army was commanded by Southerners, Federal revenues to be spent on the military were set by Southerners and had been for nearly all of the past 60 years.
So, if Southerners weren't happy with Federal government, they simply weren't happy with themselves.
It's not the fault of Northerners if RE Lee could not adequately protect Texans from Indians or "banditti".

That's plenty enough for one post.
Will work on the remainder when time permits.

FLT-bird: "This is complete BS.
The Southern states never had the population or representation of the Northern states.
To claim they ran things despite being in the minority is patently absurd."

Oh, but they certainly did, in the beginning.
In 1790 Virginia was the most populous state (including slaves) and roughly half of Americans lived in the South.
In 1810 New York's population surpassed Virginia's and in 1820 so did Pennsylvania's, such that by 1830 the South's population had fallen to about 44% of the total.

Still the Constitution's 3/5 rule gave Southerners far more representation in Washington than their white populations alone would allow, and the huge political skills of such recognized Southern geniuses as Jefferson, Madison and Andrew Jackson gave the South far more clout in Washington, DC, than mere numbers suggest.

Unfortunately such giants were eventually followed by lesser men of lesser skills and correspondingly more difficult dispositions.
South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks comes to mind.

Regardless, before 1861 Southern Democrats always dominated their Doughfaced Northern Democrat brethren and together Democrats Dominated in Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861 -- almost continuously, with very few exceptions.
The strength of Democrat dominance can be seen in the steady decline of tariffs after what was effectively the Calhoun/Jackson Tariff of Abominations.
Note my graph in post #290 above.

Again, if you'll note the two maps in post #290 of 1852 & 1856 elections, you'll see that in 1852 Democrats totally dominated the North and in 1856 still took some very important Norther states (i.e., Pennsylvania).
But in 1860 Preston Brooks' Fire Eater buddies succeeded in splitting the Democrat party, demoralizing Northern Democrats and paving the way for minority Republican victory.

So Southerners didn't lose power in Washington, DC, so much as they threw it away.

FLT-bird: "In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote: The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097.
Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097."

Speaking of "patently absurd", those numbers certainly are, since there is no possible way to collect them.
Federal import tariffs were collected at ports on entry and afterwards was no way to tell the ultimate customers, or even if Northern or Southern.
So what such numbers typically do refer to is US exports which were not taxed but were claimed to somehow "pay for" imports.

Thus, for example, if Deep South cotton represented, say, 50% of total exports (which it did), then it was claimed the Deep South "paid for" 50% of US imports and thus Federal revenue tariffs.
Likewise with tobacco or rice, etc.

But one problem is: cotton is the only product where that equation really works -- everything else could be and was produced in many places, only counted as "Southern products" because they were exported from Southern ports, i.e., New Orleans.
This was proved big-time in 1861 when Confederate South products were 100% deleted from US exports, and yet a "Southern product" like tobacco's exports fell only 14%.
Clearly tobacco was not only produced by Confederates.

Of course, if you wish to argue that Muscoe Russell Garnett's numbers are what many Southerners came to believe, then it might be true some believed it, but the numbers themselves are, ahem, "patently absurd".

FLT-bird: "Complete BS.
All the commentators at the time, as well as several Northern Newspapers, foreign commentators and Charles Adams all say otherwise.
On your side you have one 1928 book."

I don't dispute that some believed what you say, I only say that it was not true.
My opinions are based not only on that 1928 book, which shows that Federal spending was roughly equal North vs. South, but also on some of the same documents used to show that "Southern products" exceeded all other by far.

I simply note that when Confederate products were deleted, cotton exports did indeed fall 80% as you would expect.
But no other "Southern product" fell anywhere near than much and tobacco, for example fell only 14%.
Clearly not all "Southern products" were produced in the Confederate South.

FLT-bird: "So of the 6, none were arrested and that was due to the support of locals in Massachusetts as well as sympathetic local officials.
Texas was absolutely right to say that Northerners sympathize with financial backers of terrorism directed against the South."

Some Northerners, just like today some Americans sympathize and financially back Muslim terrorists.
History does not tell us the percentages, but I'd suggest that 150 close neighbors defending Franklin Sanborn against arresting Federal officers did not necessarily speak for all of several million Northern voters.
Indeed, in 1860 those Northern voters may still have returned more Democrats to office, had the party remained united.

FLT-bird: "I was talking about the refusal of the Southern states to accept the Corwin Amendment and the subsequent war Lincoln started.
Had it been “about” slavery, the Corwin amendment would have sufficed."

But slavery was the reason given by secessionists themselves, so slavery is what Congress addressed.
Now you say it wasn't really about slavery, since Confederates rejected all such compromises.
But the truth is that once they declared secession, then no compromise offered by Congress would have been adequate to entice their return.
So slavery was the stated reason for secession, but slavery would not get Confederates to return.
As it turned out, nothing would, short of Union victory and Confederates' Unconditional Surrender.

FLT-bird: "We have furthermore seen how 3 of those 4 had extensive economic grievances relating to tariffs and grossly unequal federal government expenditures..."

Wrong again.
All four focused on slavery, none mentioned tariffs or taxes.
Yes, Georgia complained about "bounties" for "fishing smacks" but did not claim they went exclusively to Northerners, nor can anybody seriously suggest Georgia was willing to secede and risk Civil War over "fishing smacks"!
The real reason was clearly slavery.

FLT-bird: "Next you desperately try to do a simple word count to claim Rhett’s #1 concern was slavery which is of course patently false."

Nothing either "desperate" or "patently false" about it because the fact remains that Rhett devoted twice as many words to slavery as to all other issues combined.
So I'm not claiming Rhett had no other red herrings to throw out, I'm only saying the real reason is the one he spent the most words talking about -- slavery.

FLT-bird quoting: "The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States."

But that claim is false, beginning with the fact that Southerners were far from "impoverished".
Rather, on average, white Southerners were wealthier than any other people on Earth.
And Rhett's claim of "diversion" of proceeds is also false, though it appears some people then & now believed it.
In reality, such numbers were fake, as I've explained.

FLT-bird: [Doris Kerns Goodwin] "praises Lincoln for orchestrating it [Corwin].
Others have noted that he was pulling the strings on this as well."

Lincoln commented noncommittally on it in his first inaugural.
Other than that, I've seen no evidence of his "orchestration".
So I'm starting to think it's on a par with Trump's "Russia collusion" -- something devoutly wished for by his political enemies but sadly, for them, nothing but fantasy.

FLT-bird: "WHat the Corwin Amendment did do was demonstrate conclusively that the Northern states were quite willing to protect slavery effectively forever in the Constitution and that the original 7 seceding states were obviously not motivated by fears over the protection of slavery because they indicated no willingness to return upon being offered the Corwin Amendment."

Wrong on both counts.
But I did find your mysterious "orchestrator", it was President Buchanan, who took the trouble to sign the amendment, even though not required.
And Lincoln did forward it to the states, noting Buchanan's signature.
But only five states ratified it -- two Southern Border, two Northern Border, plus Rhode Island.
Most later rescinded their ratifications.
I think some allowances should be made for the local politics of those border states.

As for Confederates refusing to reconsider rejoining based only on the Corwin amendment, I would say rather that by that time secessionists were unwilling to consider anything the Union proposed, slavery related or not.

FLT-bird: "It doesn’t make them a lie.
The Northern states really had violated the compact by refusing to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution."

But that itself is a lie because the Compromise of 1850 removed responsibility for enforcing fugitive slave laws from states to Federal government.
Claims that somehow states were still responsible is rather a breech of faith by secessionists, not Northerners.

FLT-bird: "Slavery was something most white Southerners did not participate in."

Most in the Deep South certainly did, where nearly 50% of families owned slaves.
Outside the Deep South things were quite different, with slave ownership falling to 15% or less in Border States.
That's the reason those states didn't join the Confederacy, even after Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "They simply did not want to remain in given that they felt they had been economically exploited and could look forward to nothing but even more egregious economic exploitation."

Anyone could write up a list of reasons and order them by priority.
Then ask Confederates which of those reasons was more important.
I promise you, "economic exploitation" would not be near the top of any but a very few Confederates' lists.

FLT-bird: "Oh and of course it was Lincoln who launched the war and for the same reason the Southern states wanted out - he and his corporate fatcat supporters needed their cash cow ie the Southern States to finance their huge tariffs and infrastructure projects and corporate subsidies.
It was a war for empire and money.
Foreign observers saw that quite clearly."

Total nonsense, but of course there've always been rabid anti-Americans eager to denigrate our ideals and mock our motives.
Many then as now are Democrat Americans, or foreigners devoted to a larger world-government cause.
It was true then, it's true now.