Replies

FLT-bird on Rhett's address: "Desperate attempt to tapdance noted.
Rhett laid out in exhaustive detail the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the Northern states and how the slavery issue was used as a wedge issue by Northern interests to accomplish and further their sectional partisan economic legislation."

But the "desperation" and "tap dancing" are all yours, FRiend.
Sure, there's no disputing that Rhett discussed economic issues and unlike other "Reasons for secession" documents, he put them first.
But with economics mentioned, Rhett went back to the main issue, spending twice the effort on slavery that he did on all other issues combined.

FLT-bird "...among them that there could only be one slaveholder per family.
Anecdotally we know this was often not the case as children were gifted slaves, wives inherited slaves etc etc.
There could and often were multiple slaveowners in one family.
Of course if that were to be admitted, the percentage of families estimated to own slaves would plummet and we obviously can’t have that now can we!"

And you talk about desperation and tap-dancing!
That's about as desperate a crock of tap-dancing as I've seen.
The fact is that 1860 era farming families, like today's, were typically quite large, with four, six or more children the norm, not exceptional.
And legal slave ownership would seldom be divided up amongst family members, regardless of their informal understandings.

But there's a more important argument here: why do you suppose the seven Deep South states quickly seceded, primarily over slavery, but no other slave-states did?
The answer is: because slavery was the primary concern in the Deep South, where nearly half of families owned slaves, but it was of much less concern in the Upper South (25%) and Border states, where slave-holding fell to 15% & below of families.
So the parts of the Upper South, at circa 25% of slave-holding families could be persuaded to secede by Civil War, but Border States at 15% or less refused to secede regardless.

So slavery explains everything, and all your hocus pocus about tariffs and "unequal spending" explains nothing.

FLT-bird "Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures.
That expenditure flows in an opposite direction - it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream.
This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North.
Federal legislation does all this.' ——Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton"

This is at least the second quote of yours I have reason to question as legitimate, since, first, it has no date or other information included.
And second, Missouri Democrat Senator Benton would be less interested in Old South economics than in Western concerns.
Benton was a close ally of President Jackson, whose views on nullification & secession are well known.

But most important, Benton was that rarest of political animals: a Southern Democrat abolitionist!
This tells me the tone & tenor of the alleged quote are... well, off.

And since this is at least the second of your posted quotes I have reason to question, I'll put you on notice now that if I find another, I'll discount all of your alleged quotes as being nothing more than your own personal opinion gussied up to look like historical "fact".
So, take a little time to confirm them before posting nonsense.
Tell us the source and link.

FLT-bird : "Firstly BS.
Southerners had long bitterly complained about high tariffs and unequal federal government expenditures.
Those were hardly passed because they controlled everything as you claim...somehow....despite the fact that they were in the minority. "

Sorry, but the BS is all yours, FRiend.
First, the so-called Tariff of Abominations passed in 1828 over the objections of many New Englanders because of support from Southerners Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun.
Then, from 1830 to 1860 high tariffs were steadily reduced to some of the lowest ever, and that is because Southerners wanted lower tariffs -- which they got.
It demonstrates the political power of the South in Washington, DC.

As for alleged unequal Federal spending, the only real data we have says otherwise.

FLT-bird "Secondly, BS.
As I’ve amply demonstrated the South was being economically exploited by the Northern states and everybody knew it.
I’ve provided numerous quotes supporting this."

Setting aside your dubious quotes, what's left is political hyperbole, not confirmed data.
Further, it's beyond obscene for people whose wealth was built on exploiting slave-labor to complain of "exploitation" by a Federal government which they themselves largely controlled.

FLT-bird: "Thirdly, most Southerners did not own slaves."

In many regions of the Deep South especially, most white families did own slaves.
In other regions of the Upper South and Border States relatively few families owned slaves and that's why they remained loyal Unionists.

FLT-bird "And how much sympathy should anybody have for Northern slave traders who derived enormous profits from slave trading which continued illicitly long after it was prohibited in 1810 and who were only too happy to profit again servicing goods produced in part at least by slave labor?"

Democrats all, close friends, family, political allies and business associates of Southern Democrat slave-holders.
Yes, I do have lots of sympathy for Democrats, but I don't want them in charge of anything important.

FLT-bird: "The attempt to draw parallels with the political parties of today are ridiculous.
Neither party in the mid 19th century were remotely like either party today."

That is a fundamental misunderstanding on your part, FRiend.
In fact, Democrats in 1860 were exactly like Democrats today in seeking to use Federal government to support privileged legal status for their own voters.
Only their constituencies have changed -- from slave-holders then to the descendants of slaves today.
But their goals & methods remain the same, including going berserk when voted out of power.

FLT-bird "Your argument that Southerners controlled everything in Washington DC despite not having as many votes is pure fantasy."

No, the fantasy is all yours in believing that majority Democrats were not ruled over by their majority Southerners.
Despite being a minority nationally, Southerners were the majority in the majority Democrat party, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.

And as the 1856 Sumner-Brooks affair demonstrated, when Southern majority votes were not enough, well then, the Slavepower had other...ah, methods to achieve their goals.

FLT-bird: "Various Northern states refused to cooperate with federal authorities, passed laws that hindered the work of federal agents etc etc.
South Carolina and all the other Southern states could accurately say that the Northern states had deliberately obstructed recapture and return of escaped slaves as the Fugitive slave clause of the Constitution required."

But that was all nonsense, for several reasons:

In the 1850 Compromise, the South agreed to pass on jurisdiction over fugitive slaves from states to Federal government, meaning state actions were irrelevant to Constitutional obligations.
By Constitutional requirement, Federal law took precedence over state laws meaning Federal authorities could overrule whatever state impediments they encountered.
Repsonsiblity for Federal government since 1800 had been almost continuously in the hands of Southern Democrats and their Doughfaced Northern Democrat allies.
We must therefore assume those Democrats enforced their own fugitive slave laws as vigorously as such laws needed.
And if not, then they could blame nobody but themselves.
Deep South states like South Carolina had no legal standing whatever to complain about Federal fugitive slave law enforcement, since there were no known fugitive slaves from the Deep South being protected by Northern states.
And even if some were known, no legal actions were taken by Deep South states to redress their grievances.

FLT-bird: "This artificial distinction you are trying to draw between necessity and at pleasure is entirely fictitious.
Each state determines necessity for itself.
Obviously the Southern states in 1860 and 61 felt the necessity was as great as they had felt it was in 1776."

False, false & false.
It's not my distinction, it was drawn by Founders themselves, especially the Father of the Constitution, James Madison.
And the key point is that no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession, at pleasure.
And the very real distinction between "at pleasure" and "necessity" is found in events of 1776 and such words as the Virginia ratification statement on "powers perverted to their injury or oppression".

No such conditions existed in 1860.
So 1860 Fire Eaters declared their secessions at pleasure.

FLT-bird: "There were numerous statements by Jefferson and various other presidents as well as the New England Hartford Convention as well as a textbook used at West Point saying a state may unilaterally secede."

But there were none -- zero, nada -- statements by Founders supporting unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.

FLT-bird quoting: " 'The future inhabitants of [both] the Atlantic and Mississippi states will be our sons.
We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it.
Events may prove otherwise; and if they see their interest in separating why should we take sides?
God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better.' – Thomas Jefferson"

Jefferson here expresses his own mutual consent, just as our Founders "seceded" from the old Articles of Confederation by mutual consent in 1788.
So reasons of necessity and mutual consent are approved by our Founders, but no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, which is what Fire Eaters in late 1860 began to do.

FLT-bird " 'If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation' over 'union,' 'I have no hesitation in saying, ‘let us separate.’ ” Thomas Jefferson"

Surely, yet another fake Jefferson quote, but regardless, it expresses nothing more than Jefferson's mutual consent, just as Founders "seceded" from the Articles of Confederation by mutual consent in 1788.
And we should well note that in reality, when Jefferson was faced with his VP Aaron Burr's attempts to secede Louisiana, Jefferson had Burr arrested and tried for treason.

So Jefferson well understood the real distinction between mutual consent and at pleasure disunion.

FLT-bird quoting: "It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union.
To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed." —William Rawle, Chapter 32, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America"

Two points here:

Rawle was not a Founder, though he was a district attorney who prosecuted members of the Whiskey Rebellion.
So Rawle clearly knew the differences between mutual consent and necessity versus rebellion at pleasure.
Rawle in 1829 does allow that, "The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state.", but even Rawle now decades into the secession debate, does not support unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.

So I'd consider Rawle second generation and as such an unreliable purveyor of our Founders' original intentions.

FLT-bird: " 'If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.' (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint, p. 131)"

Assuming for sake of discussion that this quote is not fake, then Grant's opinion is his own, not our Founders'.
And Grant clearly implies Founders did not foresee and therefore did not sanction it.
Indeed, Grant here talks about "withdrawal" as the alternative to civil war, when in reality, it lead directly to civil war.
The fact remains: no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, and yet that is just what Deep South Fire Eaters began to do in late 1860.

FLT-bird: "President John Tyler likewise believed a state had the right to leave the Union.
So did President John Quincy Adams who tried to organize the New England states to secede in the 1820’s."

This is at least the second posting of such claims, and they were addressed the first time:

President Tyler was a Southern slave-holder whose opinions corresponded to those of other slave-holders.
The claim that President Adams tried to organize secession in the 1820s is unsupported by any facts I've ever seen and contradicts his life-long devotion to the Union.

FLT-bird: "The Northern Federalists’ Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of 'absolute necessity' (Alan Brinkley... "

Exactly right!!
Which I'm certain was not your intention, obviously a serious mistake on your part, but here you've unintentionally hit on the truth of our Founders' Original Intent -- "secession" by mutual consent or absolute necessity only, not at pleasure.
But no "absolute necessity" existed in 1814 and neither did it in 1860.

FLT-bird quoting: "...'Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.' Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848 in a speech in the US House of Representatives.
OOPS! How did that one get there?
How embarrassing!"

Thirty-eight year old Lincoln was here supporting Texans freedom from Mexico.
But notice his key word here: "revolutionize", strongly implying making war for freedom.
Lincoln nowhere implies that those who make such war must always win.

But the “desperation” and “tap dancing” are all yours, FRiend.
Sure, there’s no disputing that Rhett discussed economic issues and unlike other “Reasons for secession” documents, he put them first.
But with economics mentioned, Rhett went back to the main issue, spending twice the effort on slavery that he did on all other issues combined.

No that is clearly what is being done by you. Rhett made the economic case quite clear in his address and he had been doing so for years. He had said he would favor secession on the economic grounds alone.

And you talk about desperation and tap-dancing!
That’s about as desperate a crock of tap-dancing as I’ve seen.

Hardly. It is tap dancing and desperation to try to inflate the numbers as much as possible which is what you are doing.

The fact is that 1860 era farming families, like today’s, were typically quite large, with four, six or more children the norm, not exceptional.
And legal slave ownership would seldom be divided up amongst family members, regardless of their informal understandings.

This is patently false. Dividing slave ownership among family members was quite common in families that owned many slaves. They were given as manservants upon reaching adulthood or as domestic help as wedding gifts or inherited when a parent died, etc etc.

But there’s a more important argument here: why do you suppose the seven Deep South states quickly seceded, primarily over slavery, but no other slave-states did?
The answer is: because slavery was the primary concern in the Deep South, where nearly half of families owned slaves, but it was of much less concern in the Upper South (25%) and Border states, where slave-holding fell to 15% & below of families.

There is no evidence nearly half the white families in those states owned slaves. What can be proven is that less than 10% of the white population in even those states did. IF slavery and concern for its preservation was such a big concern to these states then why pray tell did they not accept the Corwin Amendment which would have protected slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment as sufficient to warrant their return? Don’t try to tapdance by saying something like “they had decided to leave and weren’t coming back”. Well duh they did not come back. We all know that. Why? IF their main concern is what you claim and they were offered something that would address exactly that then why would that not do the trick?

So the parts of the Upper South, at circa 25% of slave-holding families could be persuaded to secede by Civil War, but Border States at 15% or less refused to secede regardless.

So slavery explains everything, and all your hocus pocus about tariffs and “unequal spending” explains nothing.

If slavery explains everything then they would have gladly accepted the Corwin amendment. Yet we know they did not. Talk about hocus pocus.

This is at least the second quote of yours I have reason to question as legitimate, since, first, it has no date or other information included.
And second, Missouri Democrat Senator Benton would be less interested in Old South economics than in Western concerns.
Benton was a close ally of President Jackson, whose views on nullification & secession are well known.

But most important, Benton was that rarest of political animals: a Southern Democrat abolitionist!
This tells me the tone & tenor of the alleged quote are... well, off.

And since this is at least the second of your posted quotes I have reason to question, I’ll put you on notice now that if I find another, I’ll discount all of your alleged quotes as being nothing more than your own personal opinion gussied up to look like historical “fact”.
So, take a little time to confirm them before posting nonsense.
Tell us the source and link.

I already responded and provided a source to the first quote. I could have provided more as it has been cited several times in more than one book.

I don’t really care if you try to claim the quotes I’ve provided which I have also provided sources for somehow do not meet your standards. I will just take that as proof of your denial of reality if it is inconvenient for you.

Sorry, but the BS is all yours, FRiend.
First, the so-called Tariff of Abominations passed in 1828 over the objections of many New Englanders because of support from Southerners Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun.
Then, from 1830 to 1860 high tariffs were steadily reduced to some of the lowest ever, and that is because Southerners wanted lower tariffs — which they got.
It demonstrates the political power of the South in Washington, DC.

As for alleged unequal Federal spending, the only real data we have says otherwise.

Wrong. The BS is yours. I’ve already provided tons of evidence as to the unequal federal spending. Like with the quotes provided with sources, you simply choose to claim that they’re not credible if they’re perfectly credible but simply inconvenient for you.

That even the “compromise” tariff was almost twice the maximum the Southern states would allow under their own constitution tells us all we need to know about the South’s supposed domination of the federal government.

Setting aside your dubious quotes, what’s left is political hyperbole, not confirmed data.
Further, it’s beyond obscene for people whose wealth was built on exploiting slave-labor to complain of “exploitation” by a Federal government which they themselves largely controlled.

I provided the quotes and the sources. You choose to question them because they are inconvenient for you. What is incredible is your claim that Southerners controlled the federal government despite being in the minority. What is obscene is for people whose wealth was built on selling slaves and servicing good produced at least in part by slaves they sold to then claim they were fighting some war for freedom of those same slaves. Hey, if they had been so concerned, maybe they could have used some of that blood money in their pockets to buy the slaves’ freedom. Oh but they were not about to do that nor were they even to consider giving up any of their ill gotten gains.....it was so much easier to point an accusatory finger at the South while trying to sweep their own complicity under the rug.

Some border states were occupied like Maryland. Others did secede like Missouri. Kentucky was torn.

Democrats all, close friends, family, political allies and business associates of Southern Democrat slave-holders.
Yes, I do have lots of sympathy for Democrats, but I don’t want them in charge of anything important.

You try to break this down by political party and somehow think that explains everything. It doesn’t. Not even close. Northern Democrats were Northerners and represented Northern interests - not Southern ones. Nor were they pawns of Southern Democrats just because they happened to be in the same party.

That is a fundamental misunderstanding on your part, FRiend.
In fact, Democrats in 1860 were exactly like Democrats today in seeking to use Federal government to support privileged legal status for their own voters.
Only their constituencies have changed — from slave-holders then to the descendants of slaves today.
But their goals & methods remain the same, including going berserk when voted out of power.

You’ve got to be kidding. The Democrats of that time were generally though not always the party of limited government. The Republicans were in bed with big corporations which were almost exclusively in the North. Blacks then were likely to be Republicans. Farmers and rural people in the North were more likely to be Democrats. It bears no relation to the parties today. Democrats today are the party of big government while Republicans are or at least claim to be the party of limited government.

No, the fantasy is all yours in believing that majority Democrats were not ruled over by their majority Southerners.
Despite being a minority nationally, Southerners were the majority in the majority Democrat party, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.

And as the 1856 Sumner-Brooks affair demonstrated, when Southern majority votes were not enough, well then, the Slavepower had other...ah, methods to achieve their goals.

This is too funny. You just claim with no evidence that Northern Democrats back then were nothing more than pawns or mere shills of Southern Democrats. Of course it would be rather inconvenient for you to admit anything else.

As previously discussed Sumner-Brooks was a personal affair that came about because Sumner was such a jerk personally.

But that was all nonsense, for several reasons:

In the 1850 Compromise, the South agreed to pass on jurisdiction over fugitive slaves from states to Federal government, meaning state actions were irrelevant to Constitutional obligations.

By Constitutional requirement, Federal law took precedence over state laws meaning Federal authorities could overrule whatever state impediments they encountered.

Repsonsiblity for Federal government since 1800 had been almost continuously in the hands of Southern Democrats and their Doughfaced Northern Democrat allies.
We must therefore assume those Democrats enforced their own fugitive slave laws as vigorously as such laws needed.
And if not, then they could blame nobody but themselves.

Deep South states like South Carolina had no legal standing whatever to complain about Federal fugitive slave law enforcement, since there were no known fugitive slaves from the Deep South being protected by Northern states.
And even if some were known, no legal actions were taken by Deep South states to redress their grievances.

But your denial is nonsense for several reasons: Southerners did not control the federal government. They were in the minority. The federal government then had less power than it has usurped now. Various Northern states enacted laws and took “extra legal” measures like mob violence to prevent federal slave catchers from catching and returning slaves. They have bragged about it ever since as proof of their supposed moral superiority.

South Carolina had every legal basis for saying those various Northern states had violated the compact. They did. They deliberately obstructed the federal government in its efforts to do what they had agreed to when they ratified the Constitution.

False, false & false.
It’s not my distinction, it was drawn by Founders themselves, especially the Father of the Constitution, James Madison.
And the key point is that no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession, at pleasure.
And the very real distinction between “at pleasure” and “necessity” is found in events of 1776 and such words as the Virginia ratification statement on “powers perverted to their injury or oppression”.

No such conditions existed in 1860.
So 1860 Fire Eaters declared their secessions at pleasure.

Wrong. It was not drawn by Madison before ratification of the Constitution and was not agreed to by the states. Jefferson supported unilateral secession anytime a state wanted to do so. So did several other presidents including John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, even US Grant.

You say there was no such injury or oppression in 1860. It is not for you to decide that. It is for each state to decide that. Virginia obviously believed there was. That’s all that was necessary. Nowhere in their express proviso did they say they needed anybody else’s permission to secede.

But there were none — zero, nada — statements by Founders supporting unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.

But Jefferson never drew any distinction between pleasure or necessity - only that states had the right to secede. Several other presidents said the same. The bottom line is that it is the right of each state to determine necessity for itself. They are sovereign.

Jefferson here expresses his own mutual consent, just as our Founders “seceded” from the old Articles of Confederation by mutual consent in 1788.
So reasons of necessity and mutual consent are approved by our Founders, but no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, which is what Fire Eaters in late 1860 began to do.

LOL! What???? Mutual consent? You’ve constructed castles in the air here. Nowhere did any state agree that they required “mutual consent” in order to secede. As for the Articles, they did not all secede at once. Some states seceded and then others followed later. The ones who seceded did not hold that they required permission from the remainers before they be allowed to leave. 3 states had express provisos reserving their own individual right of secession. None of them said they required others’ permission to secede. Every state understood itself to have that right. Nobody at the time said they did not.

Surely, yet another fake Jefferson quote, but regardless, it expresses nothing more than Jefferson’s mutual consent, just as Founders “seceded” from the Articles of Confederation by mutual consent in 1788.
And we should well note that in reality, when Jefferson was faced with his VP Aaron Burr’s attempts to secede Louisiana, Jefferson had Burr arrested and tried for treason.

So Jefferson well understood the real distinction between mutual consent and at pleasure disunion.

This is your default setting isn’t it? Any time a quote is inconvenient for you you claim it to be a false quote. Well once again its not a false quote.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0101

Jefferson draws no distinction between “at pleasure” or “by necessity”. Only if a state wishes it. That is all.

Two points here:

Rawle was not a Founder, though he was a district attorney who prosecuted members of the Whiskey Rebellion.
So Rawle clearly knew the differences between mutual consent and necessity versus rebellion at pleasure.

Rawle in 1829 does allow that, “The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state.”, but even Rawle now decades into the secession debate, does not support unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.

So I’d consider Rawle second generation and as such an unreliable purveyor of our Founders’ original intentions.

Rawle was not a Founder. He was one of the pre-eminent legal scholars in early America. He was appointed by Washington as district attorney for Philadelphia and he was president of the Pennsylvania abolition society.

In any event, what the Founders thought is nice and all but what matters is what the states agreed to when they ratified the constitution. No state agreed that it required the consent of other states to secede. Every state guarded its sovereignty jealously.

Assuming for sake of discussion that this quote is not fake, then Grant’s opinion is his own, not our Founders’.
And Grant clearly implies Founders did not foresee and therefore did not sanction it.
Indeed, Grant here talks about “withdrawal” as the alternative to civil war, when in reality, it lead directly to civil war.
The fact remains: no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, and yet that is just what Deep South Fire Eaters began to do in late 1860.

Yes Yes, we know. Any quote you don’t like is “fake” even when properly sourced. (rolleyes) Withdrawal is the same as secession. It lead to war because Lincoln chose to start a war over it. Jefferson never drew any distinction about the conditions under which a state may secede. More importantly, no state ever agreed that it must satisfy others that certain conditions had been met before it could exercise its sovereign right to secede. States were actual parties to the Constitution.

This is at least the second posting of such claims, and they were addressed the first time:

President Tyler was a Southern slave-holder whose opinions corresponded to those of other slave-holders.

The claim that President Adams tried to organize secession in the 1820s is unsupported by any facts I’ve ever seen and contradicts his life-long devotion to the Union.

Ah so Tyler’s view doesn’t count because he was a slave holder - nevermind that Washington, Madison, Henry, Mason, Monroe and Jefferson among others were all slaveholders as was Andrew Jackson.

As for John Quincy Adams and Secession....read it and weep.

http://discerninghistory.com/2013/07/john-quincy-adams-on-secession/

Exactly right!!
Which I’m certain was not your intention, obviously a serious mistake on your part, but here you’ve unintentionally hit on the truth of our Founders’ Original Intent — “secession” by mutual consent or absolute necessity only, not at pleasure.
But no “absolute necessity” existed in 1814 and neither did it in 1860.

Not a bit! They never said WHO DETERMINES necessity. Obviously it is each state....as NY, VA and RI had expressly reserved that right for themselves and all others understood themselves to have that right.

It is not for you or anyone else to say when absolute necessity existed for each state. That is for them to determine for themselves. A right you can exercise only with others’ permission is no right at all.

Thirty-eight year old Lincoln was here supporting Texans freedom from Mexico.
But notice his key word here: “revolutionize”, strongly implying making war for freedom.
Lincoln nowhere implies that those who make such war must always win.

LOL! Fred Astaire has got nothing on you when it comes to tapdancing. It was 1848. That was the year of revolutions in Europe. Texas’ Independence was won in 1836. Lincoln was obviously not talking about Texas independence. He said secession was a noble principle we hope “to liberate the world”. It was just fine and a natural right in his mind. This was hardly radical. The colonies had seceded from the British Empire. Recognizing and even celebrating the right of secession was the norm in America prior to 1860. He only reversed himself once his corporate fatcat supporters made it clear that they could not afford to see their cash cow leave.....