Replies

BroJoeK Wrong again.

Today’s Democrat party started off as anti-Federalists lead by Southerners like Patrick Henry and James Monroe, opposed to ratification of the US Constitution.

After ratification (1788), anti-Federalists became the new anti-Administration faction now lead by Southerners Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
They opposed Northern Federalists like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

Around 1792 Jefferson’s anti-Federalists faction became known as the Democratic-Republican party, lead by Southerners it destroyed the old Northern Federalist party and lasted until around 1825.

By 1825 Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party split, with Southerners like Andrew Jackson supporting the new Democrat party and Northerners like John Quincy Adams the new Whig party.
Northern Whigs eventually became Lincoln Republicans while Jefferson-Jackson Democrats became the party of Wilson, FDR, LBJ, WJC & BHO.
And, oh yeh, the party of slavery, secession, Civil War, Black Laws, segregation, KKK, etc., etc.

In summary, Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were the party of the South which became Jacksonian Democrats, allied with Big City Northerners like Martin Van Buren.

Today’s Democrats are the same people except that where old Democrats were slave-holders allied to Big City Northerners, today it is Big City Democrats allied to the descendants of slaves.
But the program & practices are largely the same.

No, YOU are WRONG. The Democratic Party was started by Andrew Jackson in the 1820’s. The parties through history have not been nearly as neat or consistent as you claim. They have morphed and changed over time.

BroJoeK It’s just basic history, which you should have learned in school.
You can find its details spelled out with any internet search.
Wikipedia does as good a job as any on that.

No its not. You have provided no evidence for it. Its just some fantasy you came up with because its convenient for what you want to believe.

BroJoeK Sure, but it does demonstrate that Southerners would stop at nothing to assert their dominance.

No it demonstrates that Sumner was a complete jerk and shot his mouth off about somebody who had family members who were not going to take that.

BroJoeK Some Yankees may have loved it, others did not.
New Englanders opposed it (23-16), along with most Southerners but Mid-Atlantic and Western states supported it.
Original supporters included VP John C. Calhoun from South Carolina who later resigned when President Jackson (from Tennessee) didn’t fully repeal it.

Point it: there were a lot of hands on that bill, and far from all were “Northern”, just as far from all opposed were “Southern”.

In general the Southern states quickly came to hate it because it did huge harm to their economy. New England came to love it and tried to keep it in place because it allowed them to significantly increase prices while still gaining market share.

BroJoeK To which President Jackson responded strongly and South Carolinians backed down.

Actually it was ended by compromise not by one side backing down. The tariffs were steadily reduced which was the very thing South Carolina had wanted.

BroJoeK But you’ve provided no actual data, none, just political quotes that we have no way of verifying.
And no, I don’t “cling desperately”, but so far that 1928 book is the only actual data we have.
When you produce something else, we can consider it.

But I have provided actual data. I have also provided sources like tax expert Charles Adams’ 2 books on the subject. I have also provided numerous quotes from all sides and from newspapers at the time. You haven’t even addressed Adams’ books and have tried to pretend they did not exist.

BroJoeK Long term, the South received about half of Federal expenditures. That sounds fair to me.

No they didn’t. Not even close. And they were paying the vast majority of the tariffs so it was doubly unfair.

Wrong again:

“The [Confederate] import tariff, enacted in May 1861, was set at 12.5% and it roughly matched in coverage the previously existing Federal tariff, the Tariff of 1857.[9]
Between February 17 and May 1 of 1861, 65% of all government revenue was raised from the import tariff.”

The Confederate tariff of 1861 was roughly the same as the Union tariff of 1857.
It was expected to bring in $25 million in revenues.
It didn’t.

Wrong, they set the maximum initially as a revenue tariff...ie 10% maximum. They were forced due to the needs of war to raise more revenue to defend themselves and thus had to raise it. I have provided quotes from the confederate constitution and numerous articles from Northern newspapers bemoaning the South’s maximum 10% tariff.

Here is one I have already posted numerous times. There are many others proving my point:

That either revenue from these duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed, the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up. We shall have no money to carry on the government, the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe....allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of TEN PERCENT which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York. The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports.” New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article “What Shall be Done for a Revenue?”

BroJoeK No, Morrill only passed after secessionists walked out of Congress.
Indeed, Republicans only won the 1860 election because Southern Fire Eaters split their national Democrat party apart making Democrat victory impossible.
So secessionists had only themselves to blame for the results of their actions.

Yes it DID pass after the Southern delegation withdrew but it was GOING TO pass anyway. The only difference between it becoming law or not was 1-2 Senators. They could have easily picked off 1-2 Senators. No matter how many times you try to claim it couldn’t possibly have passed without the Southern delegation withdrawing, it remains untrue.

BroJoeK So Lost Cause mythologizers repeatedly claim, but can provide no actual historical data to support it.

Try reading his inaugural address! LOL!

BroJoeK Total fantasy.

Total Reality and I’ve posted numerous newspaper articles demonstrating the point as well as quotes from sources on all sides.

BroJoeK No, your posts don’t support your ridiculous claim that all imports were owned by Southerners.

I never said “all”. I said Southerners were doing most of the exporting and importing. This has amply been demonstrated by all sources.

BroJoeK No misreading by me.
Here again you claim “Southerners owned the goods to be imported.”.
I’m merely reporting to you that DiogenesLamp claims everything was controlled by evil “New York power brokers”.
But if Southerners owned their goods, then they’d have no need of “power brokers”, right?

What the hell are you talking about? NY serviced Southern exports....everything from Factors to Bankers to Insurers to Shipbuilders, to Shipping Companies.

BroJoeK The numbers we have don’t support your assertions.
Instead they tell us that, except for cotton, “Southern products” did not equate to Confederate products.
They tell us that, except cotton, much or all of it was produced in Union states (i.e., Kentucky, Missouri) or in Unionist regions of Confederate states (I.e., E Tennessee, W Virginia).
Confederate territory under Union army control would continue with business as usual.

The numbers DO support what I’ve said. So do the newspapers. So do commentators....and from all sides. Cotton alone was 60% of US exports. Missouri seceded by the way.

BroJoeK Sure, since 1861 was the key year, when the Confederacy was whole and could do what it wished, i.e., block the Mississippi River to Union commerce.
So Mid-West exports had to ship east on railroads instead of south on steamboats.
And Southern products were not going to ship north on the Mississippi past Confederate gun boats there to stop them.

After 1861, as more & more of the Confederacy was returned to the Union, then its products would return to Union export data.

Here’s the bottom line: there was a huge difference, it turned out, between alleged “Southern products” and Confederate products.
That means all the economic analysis based on percentages of “Southern products” was & is flawed.

Its ridiculous to take ONE YEAR’s worth of data and claim this tells the whole story for all time. I’ve already explained why one year - particularly the first year of the conflict - is not a reliable indicator of where goods came from. eg. There are things like warehouses in which goods are stored after all. Sometimes those goods aren’t produced in the same year they are exported.....

Most Southern states left. Kentucky was in dispute as was Missouri. Maryland was occupied and Delaware never chose to leave. Most Southern states left so there’s not much of a difference between “Southern” and “Confederate”. There are reams of data and numerous commentators on all sides openly saying the Southern states provided the overwhelming majority of all exports.

BroJoeK Yet, 1861 puts the lie to claims that “Southern products” represented 3/4 or 80% or whatever of US total exports.
When Confederate products were removed from US exports, including 80% of cotton, total US exports fell just 35%.
And excluding cotton, the reduction in “Southern” exports was only $3 million.
The mystery is solved when you remember that “Southern products” included exports from several Union states, including Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware.

No it doesn’t. Sorry but you do not know better than what observers at the time on all sides and even foreign countries were saying nor do I trust the one year’s worth of data you have compiled over what other economic historians like Charles Beard and Charles Adams have shown.

BroJoeK But the data we have doesn’t show it.
It shows roughly equal spending, over time, North & South.
The claim that “everybody knew” doesn’t make it true.

ah but we have data that does show it and I have provided those sources. It shows the North got about 75-80% of federal spending.

BroJoeK Buchanan the Doughfaced Northern Democrat would say whatever his Southern masters wanted to hear, so he’s hardly a credible source.
The data we have does not support your claims.

Your claim that Northerners did whatever Southerners told them to do because they happened to be Democrats is laughable. Its irrational and you have no evidence to support it. Oh and of course the data shows the opposite of what you claim.

BroJoeK No, it’s supported by all the data we have, including records of Congress, presidents’ cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, army commanders, etc.
All those records tell us that Southerners ruled over Washington, DC, until secession in 1861, with very few exceptions.

No in fact the evidence refutes it. Its a ridiculous claim The Southern states were in the minority. They did not control the federal government - far from it.

BroJoeK There was no Corwin amendment for Confederates to reject, because it never got to them.
There was no Morrill tariff for them to vote on because they walked out long before it finally passed.

Oh but there WAS a Corwin Amendment. Lincoln offered it in his inaugural address if only the 7 seceding states would return. They rejected it. The Morrill Tariff was sure to pass the Senate - the last barrier to its passage. They only needed to flip 1-2 Senators.

BroJoeK Davis absolutely needed war because Virginia refused to secede without it, and along with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.

He didn’t need Virginia. The original 7 seceding states were happy to go on their way without Virginia.

BroJoeK Just as Doughfaced Democrat President Buchanan had refused.
In this matter, if in no others, both Buchanan and Lincoln understood & agreed where their duty lay.

This puts the lie to your claim that Davis was the one who needed a war. He didn’t want one and made that clear. He was perfectly happy to depart in peace. It was Lincoln who needed a war and who started one. Deliberately.

BroJoeK So claims Mr. NO-EVIDENCE-bird himself!
You can look up the Confederate declaration of war on May 6, 1861 on line — here, for example.
The Union never did formally declare war, doubtless because that was not considered appropriate in cases of rebellion.
But Congress did approve all of Lincoln’s actions and authorized his military operations.

Lincoln sent a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters WITHOUT the consent of Congress. He called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the Southern States BEFORE the CSA declared war and prepared to defend itself against this invasion.

BroJoeK First, there was no “violation of compact”, because the 1850 compromise made it irrelevant.
Second, secessionists were offered nothing, so they rejected nothing.
That’s all pure fantasy on your part.

First there was a violation of the compact by the Northern states when they actively hindered the return of fugitive slaves acting against federal agents.
Second Lincoln openly offered the Corwin Amendment to the original 7 seceding states. Its right there in his inaugural address. Try reading it some time.

BroJoeK But they didn’t “lay it out”, they briefly mentioned it in one paragraph out of 14.
The rest were devoted to slavery.
Clearly Georgians knew where their real priorities lay, even if FLT-bird misses it.

Nah, they went on at length about all the bounties paid to Northern interests at Southern expense. In fact it was one of the first things they mentioned despite the fact that this was not unconstitutional. You just can’t bear to admit that.

BroJoeK Just one of many complaints focused on their real reason for secession: slavery.

No they were very clear that the slavery issue was being used to further the interests of those Northerners interested in jacking tariff rates back up “each side began casting about for new allies”

JoeBroK It takes a special kind of self-imposed blindness not to see that 13 of 14 paragraphs in the Georgia reasons are devoted to slavery.
Only one paragraph is devoted to all other reasons.

So you admit it was not “all about”. Good! You could have just said that from the start and saved a lot of time.

BroJoeK But if Lee had done his job, Texans would have nothing to complain about.
It’s not clear what his duties in Texas were, but he was there several years and Texans were not happy with the results.

As for “irrational hatred”, coming from Mr. IRRATIONAL HATRED-bird, that’s pretty rich.
But about half of my large family is Southern, and I don’t hate them, I love them.
Of course, they don’t fill up conversations with a bunch of godawful lies the way our Lost Cause mythologizers do.

But that’s horsecrap. The 2nd in command of one of the regiments is entirely to blame? LOL! There were nowhere near enough troops to cover the vast amount of territory needed to be covered and against as many Indians and Bandits as they had to contend with. Texas made it quite clear they had received insufficient resources from the federal govt for defending the border. You then try to twist that to somehow blame not even the commander but the 2nd in command....of one of the brigades. Yep, irrational hatred on your part. Gosh, why might you be so focused on trying to blame one of the junior officers for this mission? Just the standard lies from PC Revisionists.

BroJoeK Sure, paragraph #18, very briefly, in passing.

Another cause in the train of abuses...very similar to the Declaration of Independence in listing a train of abuses.

BroJoeK Two paragraphs talk about RE Lee’s failure to protect Texans against “savage Indians” & “banditti”, one (#18) complains about “unequal legislation”, and all the rest, 19+ are devoted to their real reason: slavery.

So who’s lying?

They don’t talk about one of the 2nds in command of one of the brigades. This is a lie on your part.

They list a train of abuses INCLUDING refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause....INCLUDING sending terrorists into the South to cause death and destruction. Is that about slavery? No. Its about the irrational hatred the North had for the South and how the Southern states could no longer live with them.

BroJoeK Or... you could just as well say that Rhett saved his strongest clinching arguments — slavery — for the end.
The fact remains that he spent twice as many words on slavery as he did on all other reasons combined.

Nah, he used the best and strongest argument first - sectional partisan legislation which drained money out of the South and lined Northerners’ pockets. He was wordy about the North’s bad faith on the slavery issue but he laid out the North’s bad faith and economic exploitation first.

BroJoeK Sure, and some of our pro-Confederate posters claim they would have supported secession just as a chance to kill some Yankees, they didn’t need any other excuses!
But the fact remains that at the time slavery was the main reason, if not the only reason, used to justify secession.

The fact remains that this is BS. They listed a variety of causes ranging from the tariffs to unequal federal government expenditures to refusal to provide border security to sending terrorists into the South to kill to refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. The overarching theme is the bad faith of the Northern states.

BroJoeK Not

Oh but it was.

BroJoeK But only after the fact.
The first seven declarations of secession came before Lincoln’s inauguration, and were made anticipating Republican take-over in Washington, DC.
By the time Lincoln took office and might have done something about it, secession was done and a new Confederacy formed, so they weren’t going back.

By the way, if you’re interested in where the idea for the Corwin amendment came from, you might consider this:

“In the Congressional session that began in December 1860, more than 200 resolutions with respect to slavery,[7] including 57 resolutions proposing constitutional amendments,[8] were introduced in Congress.
Most represented compromises designed to avert military conflict.
Senator Jefferson Davis, a Democrat from Mississippi, proposed one that explicitly protected property rights in slaves.[8”

Of course, by the time Corwin finally passed Congress, Davis was long gone.

Lincoln said on the campaign trail and over and over again that he had no intention of interfering with slavery. He even promised to strengthen fugitive slave legislation. He did that BEFORE South Carolina seceded.

You just blithely CLAIM “they weren’t going back”. You don’t know that. You only know that they did not accept explicit protections of slavery + high tariffs. You don’t know that they would not have accepted something different....like no tariff hike and equal federal government expenditures for example....because that was never offered.

Corwin was from Ohio by the way. Nice try.

BroJoeK Statistics say there were more rich people in the South than the North.
That suggests to me, if there was any “draining” going on, it went the other way.

No it doesn’t. It says that Southerners got wealthy earlier since they had valuable exports while the North did not until Midwestern grain starting really in the 1850s. As we have shown already, Southerners paid most of the tariff burden while most federal government expenditures went to the North. The North saw fit to use its majority to vote itself other people’s money right from the start.

BroJoeK The book I posted in #385 above is very clear on those statistics.
You should read it.

Charles Adams and Charles Beard are very clear on the statistics. You should read them.

BroJoeK The amendment passed Congress before Lincoln was inaugurated.
Lincoln forwarded it to the states, but if he in fact “orchestrated” anything, it would have been Corwin’s defeat, since only four, maybe five states ratified it.
Some “orchestration”.

You obviously haven’t read even the nauseating hagiographies of his supporters like Doris Kearns-Goodwin who praises him for orchestrating it. He was the president elect. He was the de facto leader of the party. This did not happen without his knowledge, approval or support.

BroJoeK Totally wrong, and now you’re just making up nonsense.
Lincoln was not even there when Corwin passed — President Buchanan signed it.
And the few states that did ratify Corwin included two critical slave-states, Kentucky & Maryland.
Corwin helped keep them in the Union, but was never “offered” to Confederate states.

Not at all. Lincoln was the president elect. He was the de facto leader of the Republican Party. The passage of the Corwin Amendment was his doing. In his inaugural address he offers the Corwin Amendment (and the Morrill Tariff though he did not say that, everybody knew it had passed) on the one hand, and war on the other. The Corwin Amendment was the offer to the Southern states. They turned it down.

BroJoeK I don’t know where you get the idea that all these “offers” were made, they weren’t.
There was no “offer” of representation to colonists in 1776 and there was no “offer” of Corwin to Confederates in 1861.
So it’s all just fantasy in your imagination, not history.

Where was the offer made? In his inaugural address. Duh. Try reading it some time.

BroJoeK Firstly, the federal government in 1860 was plenty powerful enough to do what it most needed to — for example put a brigade of soldiers lead by RE Lee to fight off Indians in Texas.
So it had power if it had the will.
But fugitive slaves were not a high priority to the Southerners who dominated Washington, DC.

Secondly, your repeated claims of “pretext” are simply your own fantasies overruling the real facts of history.

Obviously it was not powerful enough since several Northern states had thwarted its efforts to return fugitive slaves. Oh and Lee did not even lead one of the only 3 brigades sent to Texas. He was 2nd in command of one brigade but don’t let that stop you from spewing hate at him. LOL!

Oh and Southerners did not dominate Washington DC. They were in the minority. Claims that they dominated it are nothing more than your fantasies based on laughable claims that Northern Democrats followed orders from Southerners because they were Democrats.

The fact that the Southern states did not return when offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment in Lincoln’s inaugural address shows what their real concerns were and it was not slavery. And of course Andrew Jackson said 20 years before that Slavery would be used as a pretext as the quote I provided along with a source amply demonstrated. So you’re wrong on all counts.

BroJoeK Here’s what I know for certain: farm families 150 years ago were huge — four, six, eight children & more.
And the bigger the farm, with a big plantation house on it, the more likely was it to have grandma & grandpa, single aunts & uncles & others there.
Could more than one own slaves?
Sure, but we’re talking big families, and the children certainly would not be legal owners.
So the assumption of this calculation is only four people per family, a small enough number to take account of multiple slave-holders in the same family.

By stark contrast, your assumption is ludicrous: that none of the non-slave holders lived with or near slave-holders and therefore most had no stake in the success of that institution.

That is self-inflicted blindness, FRiend.

Farm families were big. Infant mortality was high. Not all slave owners were farmers. Children were often gifted slaves for a variety of events ranging from birthdays to marriages, etc. Wives often inherited slaves from their families so hubby might well not be the only parent to own slaves....like Grant’s wife for example...like Lee’s wife for example.

I never said non slave holders couldn’t have lived near slave holders. I said you fail to take into account that in slave holding families, often more than one person in the family owned slaves. Furthermore you make this “calculation” because you wish to maximize the number of families directly involved with slaveowning because that suits your anti-Southern agenda, FRiend.

BroJoeK Regardless if they “owned” or not, many times the 5.63 percent were invested in and dependent on slavery.
Every slave-holder had families, children, relatives & close neighbors dependent on the work of slaves, whether they legally “owned” them or not.
And beyond them were contractors who hired slaves from other slave-holders because that was still cheaper than hiring free-white laborers.
Point is: your ridiculous attempts to minimize the importance of slavery — especially in the Deep South — are beyond laughable.

More than 5.63%? Yes. “Many more”? We don’t know but even by your calculations it would be 75% and I think that calculation too high because it assumes only one slaveholder per family when we know anecdotally that was often not the case. How much does that lower it to? 20% instead of 25%? 15%? It is unknown exactly but regardless the overwhelming majority of Southerners did not own slaves.

Point is your ridiculous efforts to maximize the importance of slavery are beyond laughable.

BroJoeK Missouri’s governor was a Confederate and did everything he could, including raising an army to fight the Union army, to make Missouri Confederate.
But Missourians didn’t want secession, voted overwhelming against it and served the Union army in vastly greater numbers than Confederate, almost four to one.

They didn’t exactly have the opportunity for a free and fair vote. Missouri was mostly occupied from early on.

BroJoeK Maryland also voted overwhelmingly against secession (53-13) and supported the Union army over two-to-one vs. Confederates.
But after May 6, 1861 when Confederates formally declared war on the United States, it became, by definition, an act of treason to provide aid & comfort to Confederates.
So there were no further votes on secession.

Maryland was occupied early on and several members of the state legislature jailed by Lincoln without charge or trial before a vote could be held. Any votes held after that are not exactly reliable. Remember when Saddam used to get 99% of the vote in Iraq?

BroJoeK Constitutionally only Congress declares war, not a president.
In the Civil War Congress did not formally declare war, because that is not done in rebellions, but Congress did approve all of Lincoln’s actions and fully supported his war effort.

Lincoln’s call up of invaders was a de facto declaration of war. The Congress did not approve of him starting the war in the first place by sending a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters.

BroJoeK Studies suggest the vast majority of those arrested were residents of Confederate states, foreigners, or Border State (i.e., Maryland, Missouri) citizens sympathetic to Confederates.
Very few came from solid Union states (exception: New York), and that explains why Lincoln suffered no serious political consequences.

We might also note that Confederates arrested & held without trial over 3,000 Unionists in East Tennessee.
It means that as a percentage of the population, the number of pro-Confederates arrested in the Union was about the same as the number of Unionists arrested in the Confederacy.

Ah so they were “undesirables” in Lincoln’s mind. Of course many of them were residents of border states and most of them were Democrats - ie his political opponents. No surprise there.

“Davis . . . possessed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a total of only sixteen months. During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. The rhetoric of southern libertarians about executive tyranny thus seems overblown.” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 435)

BroJoeK Corwin did ally concerns in Union states, but contrary to your cockamamie claims, it was never “offered” to Confederates.

It was offered. Anybody who reads Lincoln’s inaugural address can see that this was the offer made to the original 7 seceding states to return.

BroJoeK A few were, the vast majority were not and did not ratify Corwin.

They didn’t ratify it because the Republicans stopped trying to get them to ratify it....because it didn’t work, the Southern states rejected it and refused to return.

BroJoeK The Confederate constitution first & foremost addressed slavery specifically and by name, making certain that it could never be abolished, anywhere or any time.
Every other change was minor & inconsequential.

Horsecrap. The main differences were the express limits on the ability of the central government to spend money.

BroJoeK Nonsense. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the Confederacy’s largest and half its work force were slaves.
Slaves did just fine in Southern factories and there would be no reason not to use them there.

Industrialization did not kill off slavery, just the opposite, the outlawing of cheap slave labor forced manufacturers to invent labor saving machines to reduce costs.
But slaves themselves were perfectly capable of working in any factory, just as their descendants do today.

Total Rubbish. Over time, Industrialization kills off slavery. This is exactly what happened in the Northern states and throughout the Western world over the course of the 19th century. It was already killing off slavery in the Upper South as the figures I posted show (lower percentage of families owned slaves, higher percentage of Blacks were freedmen, etc).

It is not a coincidence that Slavery which had existed since before writing suddenly died all over the place in the western world from Russia to the Americas over the course of about 75 years in the 19th century. Its not like people suddenly and magically became more moral in country after country. You can’t possibly be that naive.

BroJoeK In your own words: “this is just self serving BS.”
None of it is true, regardless of how often you re-post it.
It’s all a lie from the beginning, can never be anything but.

First, all of the original Declarations of Causes focus primarily if not exclusively on slavery, and you know it.
“The North” offered nothing to Confederate states, and you know it.
Slavery was the issue that drove secession and abolition became the cause of freedom for Union armies, including its 200 colored regiments, and you know all that, but just don’t like to confess it.

Nope, its all true and remains true no matter how many times you dishonestly try to deny it.

Firstly the declarations of causes did focus on the legal pretext the Southern states needed in order to say the Northern states had violated the compact.

Lincoln offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment in his inaugural address. He could only offer it because it had passed the northern dominated Congress with the 2/3rds supermajority, been signed by the president and ratified by several states already. And you know it.

The war was about MONEY like all other wars. The North was more than happy to protect slavery in the South so long as the gravy train kept rolling. The Southern states knew they’d be much better off on their own which is why they wanted out. It was ALL ABOUT money and you know it, you just don’t want to admit imperial Washington was fighting for grubby motives like war and empire.

BroJoeK Naw, Democrats have always been just what they are today, dominating in power or rebellious out of power, cheating, always using the law to make others pay for their own free stuff, whether those others were slaves in 1860 or just any hard working Americans today.

The parties today are nothing like the parties of 150 years ago. Its ridiculous to even try to compare them.

FLT-bird on Rep. Brooks: "No it demonstrates that Sumner was a complete jerk and shot his mouth off about somebody who had family members who were not going to take that."

So you approve of Rep. Brooks' actions?

FLT-bird on 1828 tariff: "In general the Southern states quickly came to hate it because it did huge harm to their economy.
New England came to love it and tried to keep it in place because it allowed them to significantly increase prices while still gaining market share."

No, most New Englanders opposed that tariff because it increased costs of some raw materials.
Who truly loved it were mid-Atlantic & Western manufacturers.
More important, so did Andrew Jackson, who eventually negotiated compromises of gradually falling rates.
Again, my point is it was not strictly North vs. South since many New Englanders opposed it and many Southerners (i.e., Jackson) supported it.

FLT-bird on 1830 nullification crisis: "Actually it was ended by compromise not by one side backing down.
The tariffs were steadily reduced which was the very thing South Carolina had wanted."

Right, because of Southern rule over Washington, DC, rates continued downward, for 30 years, until by 1860 they were as low as the first tariff under President Washington, about 15% average.

FLT-bird on alleged Southern exports: "But I have provided actual data.
I have also provided sources like tax expert Charles Adams’ 2 books on the subject. "

You keep yammering "Charles Adams, Charles Adams, Charles Adams..." as if the name by itself were some kind of argument.
It's not, but I went back to see if you'd actually posted anything from your Charles Adams, and found two posts, #157 from DiogenesLamp with some pretty good numbers and your post # 211 with just nonsense.
All other mentions of "Charles Adams" provided us with no data whatsoever.

But what about DiogenesLamp's post #157 to SoCal Pubbie?
Well, at least those are numbers we can work with, so let's start here:

Your DiogenesLamp/Charles Adams report says 1859 total US exports were $279 million.
I have two reports (here and here, page 605) one from a 1960 study the other US commerce department, which put 1859 ($357 million) or 1860 ($398 million & $373 million) exports considerably higher, including specie.
Of that DL/Adams puts cotton at $161 million in 1859, 58% of the total, while other sources put 1860 cotton at $191 million = 48% or 51%.

DL/Adams puts tobacco at $21 million in 1859, another source gives us $19 million in 1860.
DL/Adams puts naval stores at $3 million in 1859, another gives us $2 million in 1860.
DL/Adams puts rice at $2 million in 1859, others say $2.5 million in 1860.
So up to this point, DL/Adams seems to be at least in line with other reports.

But then seems to go completely nuts, larding on undefined or ill-defined "Southern products" that make no sense:
Undefined "other" = $10 million.
Mfg cotton = $8 million.
Breadstuffs = $36 million
Specie = $58 million (20% "Southern" = $11 million).

Added together, DL/Adams comes to $252 million or 90% of 1859 total US exports!
And this seems to be the source of all the nonsense we've seen here about it.

What it tells us is that possibly Adams and likely those who used his data were not being entirely honest.
So if we remove breadstuff & specie from "Southern products" that gets us back to 73%.
If we use the total exports from other reports ($357 million), that reduces "Southern products" to 57%.
If we more realistically allocate manufactured cotton and the undefined "other" that gets us to 55%, which begins to sound more realistic.

However, even 55% is way too much "Southern products" because what we're really talking about here are Confederate exports, and those turned out not to include much tobacco.
Of the $21 million shown, only $3 million came from the Confederacy, the rest, $18 million, was Union tobacco.
And that reduces the value of Confederate-Southern products to 50%, which is about right.

Indeed, in 1861 when nearly all Confederate exports were eliminated, US exports fell only 35%, telling us that except for cotton, alleged "Southern products" could actually grow pretty much anywhere.

FLT-bird on "unfair spending": "No they didn’t. Not even close.
And they were paying the vast majority of the tariffs so it was doubly unfair."

The actual data we have says otherwise.

FLT-bird on Confederate tariffs: "Wrong, they set the maximum initially as a revenue tariff...ie 10% maximum.
They were forced due to the needs of war to raise more revenue to defend themselves and thus had to raise it."

In fact, there were two Confederate acts setting tariffs, the first on March 15, 1861 set Confederate rates at 15%, covering especially iron for railroads.
The second act passed on May 21, 1861 had several rates. which (see this document) resembled the pre-Morrill Union tariffs and averaged 12.5%.
Had that truly been a serious threat to Union commerce, the quick & easy response would be to return Union tariffs to their pre-Morrill rates.

FLT-bird quoting: "....allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of TEN PERCENT which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York. -- New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article..."

So, after this NY Post article, on March 15 Confederates passed their first tariff, set at 15% on most items, including rail parts.
But merchants landing in Savanah for shipment to, say, Chicago would pay tariffs twice, in addition to at least 25% higher rail freight costs versus landing in New York.

In the second Confederate tariff, dated May 21, 1861 rates were set at 15%, 10%, 5% and zero.
In the case of railroad iron, that rate was still 15%, not 10%.
Of course, 15% was less than the Union's 24% pre-Morrill and 30% Morrill rate.
But why would anyone pay tariffs twice plus extra shipping?

Furthermore, by 1860 the US was producing most of its own rail, so why would anyone import it?

FLT-bird on the Morrill tariff: "Yes it DID pass after the Southern delegation withdrew but it was GOING TO pass anyway.
The only difference between it becoming law or not was 1-2 Senators.
They could have easily picked off 1-2 Senators."

You keep posting that, but it's still not true.
In 1860 Senate Democrats ruled with 38 votes to 25 for Republicans, and Southerners ruled Democrats, among other ways through seniority and chairmanships, including the finance committee.
Of those 38 Senate Democrats, 28 (74%) were Southerners, plus two Southern American party, meant they needed only four of ten Northern or Western Democrats to join them.
Considering that 14 Northern House Democrats voted "no", that seems pretty doable, had Southerners made the effort.

Further, I've always argued the House itself in 1860 could have defeated Morrill, if Southerners had remained united, because there were enough abstentions plus Border Democrats to make a majority opposed.

So there was nothing inevitable about Morrill until secessionists walked out.

FLT-bird on who owned imports: "I never said “all”.
I said Southerners were doing most of the exporting and importing.
This has amply been demonstrated by all sources."

There's no data anywhere which says who physically owned US imports when they arrived in, say, New York -- Southerners, Northerners or foreigners? -- and therefore directly paid the tariffs.
However, the 1846 Warehousing Act allowed merchants to bond imports without paying their tariff until buyers were found.
This meant that, in effect, ultimate buyers paid the tariffs, not Southern exporters except where they themselves purchased an import item after the tariff was paid.

FLT-bird: "NY serviced Southern exports....everything from Factors to Bankers to Insurers to Shipbuilders, to Shipping Companies."

Far be it from me to defend DiogenesLamp's arguments, but he claims those New York merchants & financiers were not Southern and therefore they were evil and had to be eliminated through secession.
That's his whole argument.

Now if you tell us New Yorkers weren't really that wicked after all (which I agree with) then I'm confused as to why secession was needed to eliminate them.

FLT-bird: "The numbers DO support what I’ve said.
So do the newspapers.
So do commentators....and from all sides.
Cotton alone was 60% of US exports. "

Noooo... Cotton alone was 50% of US exports, including specie.
But nothing else classified by some as "Southern products" was exclusive to the South.
Once again consider the South's #2 export, tobacco.
It also grew in Northern states (i.e., PA & OH), Union Border states (KY & MO) and Unionist regions of Confederate states (TN & VA) such that tobacco fell only 14% when Confederate exports were removed from Union totals in 1861.
Similar results with every other "Southern product" except cotton.

FLT-bird: "I’ve already explained why one year - particularly the first year of the conflict - is not a reliable indicator of where goods came from. eg.
There are things like warehouses in which goods are stored after all.
Sometimes those goods aren’t produced in the same year they are exported....."

Understood, and that explains why cotton exports fell only 80% in 1861 -- the pipeline was full and with higher prices any random bales were scarfed up & sold.
Got it.
But it can't possibly explain why the #2 export, tobacco fell only 14% or why clover seed nearly doubled and hops exports grew from $33,000 to $2,000,000 in one year!
Clearly those commodities were mis-classified as "Southern products" when they were nothing of the sort.

FLT-bird: "Missouri seceded by the way."

Only in Confederate wet dreams, along with Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware.

FLT-bird: "Most Southern states left so there’s not much of a difference between 'Southern' and 'Confederate'.
There are reams of data and numerous commentators on all sides openly saying the Southern states provided the overwhelming majority of all exports."

Turned out in 1861 there was a huge difference between "Southern" and "Confederate" products.
For one thing, of the South's 8 million whites, nearly 3 million lived in four Border States which refused to secede.
Another 600,000+ Unionists lived in Upper South states (especially WVA & E Tenn) in 1861 and Union controlled regions increased every year after.
So even after Fort Sumter in April 1861, nearly half of Southerners were not Confederates so their exports were not Confederate products.

FLT-bird: "Sorry but you do not know better than what observers at the time on all sides and even foreign countries were saying nor do I trust the one year’s worth of data you have compiled over what other economic historians like Charles Beard and Charles Adams have shown."

But all your observers in the 1850s knew nothing of what would happen in 1861, when push came to shove and their true classifications of what was really Confederate and what was actually Union came out.
Turned out in reality a lot of so-called "Southern products" were actually Union grown.

FLT-bird on alleged unequal Fed spending: "ah but we have data that does show it and I have provided those sources.
It shows the North got about 75-80% of federal spending."

Ah, but you've provided no sources to show any such thing, certainly not in terms of over all, long-term Federal spending.

FLT-bird: "Your claim that Northerners did whatever Southerners told them to do because they happened to be Democrats is laughable.
Its irrational and you have no evidence to support it."

OK, first look up the word "doughface", it's here.
Next look up President Buchanan's role in the Dred Scott decision, here.

Doughfaced Democrat Buchanan's role in Dred Scott made him the best friend the slave-power ever had in Washington, DC.

And that's plenty enough for now...

FLT-bird on Southern rule in Washington, DC: "No in fact the evidence refutes it.
Its a ridiculous claim
The Southern states were in the minority.
They did not control the federal government - far from it."

Southerners were the majority of the majority Democrats.
For example, in 1860 Democrats were the Senate majority with 38 votes to Republicans 28.
Of the 38 Democrats, 28 were Southerners and two more Southern American party.
To win a majority Southerners needed only stand united and win over four more of ten Northern Doughfaced Democrats.
And with slave-holder Presidents like Harrison, Polk & Taylor, plus Doughfaces like Pierce & Buchanan, winning over a few Northern Democrats should not be a big challenge.

FLT-bird: "Oh but there WAS a Corwin Amendment.
Lincoln offered it in his inaugural address if only the 7 seceding states would return.
They rejected it."

There was no "offer", no "rejection" and no "orchestration".
Here's what Lincoln said in his First Inaugural:

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution, which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service.
To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."

FLT-bird, did Davis need Virginia? : "He didn’t need Virginia.
The original 7 seceding states were happy to go on their way without Virginia."

No? If Virginia was unimportant, why did Confederates move the capital to Richmond at the first opportunity?
Only with Virginia came the entire Upper South, adding 1/3 to the Confederacy's square miles and more than doubling its white population, plus important manufacturing in Tennessee (Cumberland Iron works) and Richmond (Tredegar).
And all Davis had to do to win Virginia was fire a few canon shots at Fort Sumter.
Who could say "no" to such a deal?

FLT-bird referring to nothing: "This puts the lie to your claim that Davis was the one who needed a war.
He didn’t want one and made that clear.
He was perfectly happy to depart in peace.
It was Lincoln who needed a war and who started one. Deliberately."

Sorry, but Confederates never "departed in peace".
From Day One they provoked war with constant seizures of Federal properties (forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.), threats against Federal officials, firing on Union ships and in Texas, forced surrender of Union troops.
As for Davis, of course he needed war, and threatened it in his inaugural:

"If a just perception of mutual interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been fulfilled.
But, if this be denied to us, and the integrity of our territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us, with firm resolve, to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence on a just cause."

No talk of negotiations, for Davis it was: war first, talk maybe... never.
Nor did Davis limit his threats of war to land:

"should we be involved in war... common interest of the producer and consumer can only be interrupted by an exterior force which should obstruct its transmission to foreign markets -- a policy so detrimental... there will remain to us... the well-known resources for retaliation upon the commerce of an enemy."

On Day One, weeks before Lincoln's inauguration, Davis threatened war on land & sea.
And Lincoln's response:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
The government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

Lincoln did not think his resupply mission to Fort Sumter "assailed" Davis, but Davis disagreed and launched war to prevent it.
As a reward for war Davis received four new states into the Confederacy and doubled its white population.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln sent a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters WITHOUT the consent of Congress."

Just as President Jackson did in response to the nullification crisis of 1830.
But there was no "invade" in it, any more than routine US resupply missions to Guantanamo Cuba.
If unhindered it was a resupply mission only, just as Lincoln told SC Governor Pickens.

FLT-bird: [Lincoln] "called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the Southern States BEFORE the CSA declared war and prepared to defend itself against this invasion."

Right, after Fort Sumter, on April 15, to retake Federal properties unlawfully seized by Confederates.
But remember: on March 6, 1861 Confederates called up a 100,000 man army, at a time when the entire Union army was about 16,000 men, most scattered in small forts out west.
By April 15 this new Confederate army was already in use against Union troops at Forts Pickens & Sumter and in Texas to guard captured Union troops.

On May 9 Confederates called up another 400,000 troops (now 500,000 total), so there was no time in the early months when Confederate armies did not hugely outnumber the Union's.

FLT-bird: "First there was a violation of the compact by the Northern states when they actively hindered the return of fugitive slaves acting against federal agents."

One more time: just as today we don't declare "secession" over, say, California's sanctuary laws, neither was it appropriate to use Fugitive slaves as their pretext in 1861.
Had the matter been seriously important to the Southerners who ruled Washington, DC, they could simply have enforced the 1850 Compromise more vigorously.
Indeed, doesn't this contradict your claims that it was not all about "slavery, slavery, slavery"?

FLT-bird "Second Lincoln openly offered the Corwin Amendment to the original 7 seceding states.
Its right there in his inaugural address.
Try reading it some time."

I quoted it above!
It does not say what you repeatedly claim.

FLT-bird on Georgia's reasons: "Nah, they went on at length about all the bounties paid to Northern interests at Southern expense."

Sorry, one paragraph in 14 is not "at length", it's a brief mention, in passing.
Furthermore, it was total nonsense, since "bounties" available anywhere were available everywhere to anyone who qualified.
Finally, "at Southern expense" was a Big Lie as conclusively demonstrated in 1861.

FLT-bird on Georgia's reasons: "No they were very clear that the slavery issue was being used to further the interests of those Northerners interested in jacking tariff rates back up 'each side began casting about for new allies' "

Right, thus demonstrating yet again that slavery was the core issue for Deep South secessionists.

BJK previously: "It takes a special kind of self-imposed blindness not to see that 13 of 14 paragraphs in the Georgia reasons are devoted to slavery.
Only one paragraph is devoted to all other reasons."

FLT-bird: "So you admit it was not 'all about'.
Good! You could have just said that from the start and saved a lot of time."

Sure, 13 of 14 paragraphs is 93% "all about" slavery.
I'd happily grant that for some secessionists in early 1861 it was only 93% "about slavery".
But for many more it was 100% "all about" slavery.

FLT-bird on Lee in Texas: "But that’s horsecrap.
The 2nd in command of one of the regiments is entirely to blame? LOL!"

No, here is a brief summary of Lee's work in Texas.
It says in 1855 Congress authorized Secretary of War Jefferson Davis four new regiments (regiment = ~1,000 men = five squadrons of cavalry) to help defend Texas, and Lee was second in command behind Albert S. Johnson.
Lee was in direct command of one regiment in June 1856 which rode 1,600 miles in 40 days, from Fort Mason through Llano Estacado and captured three Comanches.
In 1860 Lee chased the "banditti" Juan N. Cortina, but didn't catch him.

From this report, which is entirely laudatory towards Lee, one gets the impression that he really didn't do much in Texas between 1856 and secession in 1861.
And certainly Texans didn't think much of that gang of Union officers who was supposed to protect them from "Indian savages" and "banditti".
Those implied included not just Johnson & Lee, but a long list who became well known in just a few years.

FLT-bird on Lee in Texas: "Texas made it quite clear they had received insufficient resources from the federal govt for defending the border.
You then try to twist that to somehow blame not even the commander but the 2nd in command....of one of the brigades.
Yep, irrational hatred on your part.
Gosh, why might you be so focused on trying to blame one of the junior officers for this mission?
Just the standard lies from PC Revisionists."

Nonsense because, first of all, those resources were considered totally adequate by the Secretary of War who requested them, Jefferson Davis.
Second, Lee as second in command was hardly a "junior officer", so as Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, said to Hamlet: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
Third, in fact there were more than a dozen future-famous officers serving with Lee & Johnson, some of whom, like Thomas, became renowned in the Union army.

So, sure, Lee gets to share the blame with many other worthy's, starting with Jefferson Davis who organized the mission, but it's still most curious that Texans thought so little of the army's performance they made it an issue in declaring secession.

FLT-bird on "Another cause in the train of abuses...very similar to the Declaration of Independence in listing a train of abuses."

The 1776 Declaration of Independence lists about two dozen reasons, none specifically involved slavery.
The 1861 Texas "reasons for secession" document has 22 paragraphs, 19 of which specifically involve slavery.
None mention tariffs, taxes, duties, bounties, or protections for Northern industries.

FLT-bird on Texas reasons: "They don’t talk about one of the 2nds in command of one of the brigades.
This is a lie on your part."

No, they indict the entire effort, which would include Jefferson Davis, Lee, Johnson & many other future-famous officers, Confederate & Union.
The Big Lie here is your refusal to confess the real source of Texans' unhappiness: other Southerners.

FLT-bird on Texas reasons: "They list a train of abuses INCLUDING refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause....INCLUDING sending terrorists into the South to cause death and destruction.
Is that about slavery? No Yes.
Its about the irrational hatred the North had for the South and how the Southern states could no longer live with them."

Fixed it.
Of course it was all about slavery, and very little else, especially including John Brown's raid.
As for "irrational hatred", that's just your own inner Democrat crying out, as Democrats always do, to project on others their own mental state.

FLT-bird defending Rhett: "Nah, he used the best and strongest argument first - sectional partisan legislation which drained money out of the South and lined Northerners’ pockets.
He was wordy about the North’s bad faith on the slavery issue but he laid out the North’s bad faith and economic exploitation first."

Your suggestion that Rhett was himself more concerned about other issues than slavery is fully noted and rejected.
But certainly the Upper South & Border states were less concerned about slavery than other issues, so it's likely Rhett intended to address their concerns first.

Regardless, in the overall picture, Fire Eater Rhett was less important than others like Georgia's Alexander Stephens, Confederate Vice President, who made 100% clear:

"Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition.
This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.[1]...

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions -- African slavery as it exists among us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.
This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split."
He was right.
What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact..."

FLT-bird "The fact remains that this is BS.
They listed a variety of causes ranging from the tariffs to unequal federal government expenditures to refusal to provide border security to sending terrorists into the South to kill to refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution.
The overarching theme is the bad faith of the Northern states."

Sure, "bad faith" first, last and foremost relating to slavery.
No other issue, singly or combined, had remotely enough power to drive Southerners to secession.

And that's enough for now...

FLT-bird: "Lincoln said on the campaign trail and over and over again that he had no intention of interfering with slavery.
He even promised to strengthen fugitive slave legislation.
He did that BEFORE South Carolina seceded."

Not true, remember those were quite different times from today.
During the campaign Lincoln remained studiously silent, answering reporters questions by telling them to read his public speeches.
He was very concerned not to say something during the campaign which opponents might twist to use against him.

After the November 6, 1861 election day South Carolina began immediately to organize for declaring secession, and without any reference to Lincoln's actions or words.
Indeed, for many South Carolina Democrats it was totally adequate to say the words: "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans.
That's because Democrats then as now care nothing about logic, reasons or facts, but only emotions and "Ape" Lincoln called up enough emotional revulsion to fuel any number of declarations of secession.

We saw the same Democrat response after the November 8, 2016 election, though this time because Dems still rule the Deep State, they simply employed it to destroy the new big ape in the Washington swamp.
And just as in 1861, it took many months and still not clear if they will succeed.

FLT-bird: "You just blithely CLAIM 'they weren’t going back'.
You don’t know that.
You only know that they did not accept explicit protections of slavery + high tariffs.
You don’t know that they would not have accepted something different....like no tariff hike and equal federal government expenditures for example....because that was never offered."

Of course we do know it because there is no record of any Confederate ever discussing, publicly or privately, possible reunion with the USA, until very late in the war.
We also know there were no offers made to Confederates before February 1865 at Hampton Roads.

Indeed, Jefferson Davis himself, in early 1861, while still in the US Senate was not working on the Morrill Tariff, he was working on his version of the Corwin amendment.
Clearly that should tell us more than anything where Southern concerns lay.
It makes me wonder if Davis' version of Corwin's amendment isn't the "offer" and "rejection" you keep yammering about?

FLT-bird: "Corwin was from Ohio by the way. Nice try."

Of course, near Cleveland, and Ohio was one of very few Northern states to ratify Corwin's amendment, on May 13, 1861.
Ohio withdrew its ratification on March 31, 1864.

FLT-bird: "...Southerners got wealthy earlier since they had valuable exports while the North did not until Midwestern grain starting really in the 1850s.
As we have shown already, Southerners paid most of the tariff burden while most federal government expenditures went to the North.
The North saw fit to use its majority to vote itself other people’s money right from the start."

Complete rubbish.
First, Southerners before 1861 were the majority of the majority Democrat party.
The data shows they protected their own interests quite well, thank you.

So once again I draw your attention to the important distinction between "Southern products" and "Confederate products".
Consider 1839: products of the future Confederacy (cotton & rice) totaled $64 million or 53% of 1839's $121 million total exports.
By 1860 those products totaled $195 million or 49% of $400 million total exports, including specie.
It means: between 1839 and 1860 Confederate products multiplied three times, but so did all other exports -- Western, Eastern and Union South, indeed a bit more than three times.

Second, Southerners paid no more tariff burden than anybody else, since their foreign imports were a small percentage of the totals.
But here is data which takes some study to grasp.
It shows first that Northern "exports" to the South in 1860 were $200 million, in every commodity from fish, soap & woolen goods to stoves and railroad iron.
So, whenever you're tempted to say, "the North produced squat", well... $200 million in "squat" for the South along with several times that for their own use.

It also attempts to show US 1860 import tariffs and how much of them were paid by North vs. South.
The results are not satisfying, but it does suggest that virtually all US imports in 1860 were bulk raw materials such as woolens, brown sugar, raw cotton, silks, iron & iron manufactured, coffee, molasses, flax & hemp, tea & wines, in that order of importance -- woolens most, wines the least.
Point is, any suggestions that Southerners "paid for" 80% or even 50% of these imports are clearly nonsense, since they would need, at most 25%.
The rest had to be paid for by people outside the South.

FLT-bird: "Charles Adams and Charles Beard are very clear on the statistics.
You should read them."

I read the statistics posted by DiogenesLamp in post #157.
See my response in post #566.

FLT-bird: "You obviously haven’t read even the nauseating hagiographies of his supporters like Doris Kearns-Goodwin who praises him for orchestrating it.
He was the president elect.
He was the de facto leader of the party.
This did not happen without his knowledge, approval or support."

I've read plenty of other books which accurately say Corwin was "orchestrated", passed & signed under Democrat President Buchanan.
If Lincoln "orchestrated" anything it was the states' refusal to ratify Corwin.
And Corwin was never "offered" to or "rejected" by Confederate states, only Union states like Kentucky and Maryland.

FLT-bird: "The Corwin Amendment was the offer to the Southern states.
They turned it down."

FLT-bird: "Where was the offer made?
In his inaugural address. Duh.
Try reading it some time."

Complete Lost Causer wet dream fantasies.

FLT-bird: "Oh and Lee did not even lead one of the only 3 brigades sent to Texas.
He was 2nd in command of one brigade but don’t let that stop you from spewing hate at him. LOL!"

No "hate" from me, only from Texans in early 1861.
As posted previously, Lee was second in command of four new regiments sent to Texas by Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, in 1856.
Lee directly commanded a cavalry regiment chasing Indians for 40 days over 1,600 miles near Llano Estacado, returning with three captured Comanches.
Lee also chased banditti including Juan N. Cortina in 1860 but never caught him.

Of course Texans never mentioned Lee by name, but everybody then knew who all the officers were in charge of Jefferson Davis' Texas regiments.

FLT-bird: "Oh and Southerners did not dominate Washington DC.
They were in the minority.
Claims that they dominated it are nothing more than your fantasies based on laughable claims that Northern Democrats followed orders from Southerners because they were Democrats."

Yet again: Southerners were the majority of the majority Democrats and their Doughfaced Northern Democrat allies certainly did often "follow orders", because that's just what it meant to be a Democrat then.
But if you doubt me on this, then simply consider Democrats today: who is hurt worst by their insane immigration ideas?
The poor and black poor especially, and yet there are no more loyal Democrats today than blacks.
So don't tell me that Southern Democrats before 1861 couldn't force their Northern Doughfaces to follow orders.
Democrats are nothing if not disciplined.

FLT-bird: "The fact that the Southern states did not return when offered slavery forever... "

Once again: Confederate states were offered nothing in 1861.
Yes, at Hampton Roads in February 1865, compensated emancipation was discussed, but Jefferson Davis would have none of it.
Of course by then, Davis was nearly insane and becoming, ahem, gender challenged.

FLT-bird: "I never said non slave holders couldn’t have lived near slave holders.
I said you fail to take into account that in slave holding families, often more than one person in the family owned slaves. Furthermore you make this 'calculation' because you wish to maximize the number of families directly involved with slaveowning because that suits your anti-Southern agenda..."

And you wish to minimize slave-holding in the Deep South through ludicrous calculations averaging in Upper South & Border State figures and pretending that every slave-holder lived in isolation with no family, friends or neighbors nearby, also invested in slavery's success.
It's total nonsense.

The most important point from these calculations is that while Deep South states had from 1/3 to 1/2 slaveholding families, in Border States it was far less -- in Delaware only 3% of families owned slaves, and that explains fully why they refused to secede.
So it was all about slavery.

FLT-bird: "How much does that lower it to?
20% instead of 25%? 15%?
It is unknown exactly but regardless the overwhelming majority of Southerners did not own slaves."

True enough in Border States where at least 85% of families did not own slaves, and in the Upper South where on average 75% did not have slaves.
But even in those states there were regions of much higher slave ownership, and those regions supplied their sons to the Confederate army.
Where slave ownership was less, there many more served the Union army.
But the Deep Cotton South was much different and slaveholding much higher.

FLT-bird on Missourians: "They didn’t exactly have the opportunity for a free and fair vote.
Missouri was mostly occupied from early on."

Missourians certainly did vote against secession, free & fair, 99-1 on March 19, 1861, despite Missouri's governor's best efforts to encourage secession.
But after the May 6, 1861 Confederate declaration of war any "aid and comfort" was defined as treason, so there were no more such votes.

FLT-bird: "Maryland was occupied early on and several members of the state legislature jailed by Lincoln without charge or trial before a vote could be held.
Any votes held after that are not exactly reliable."

Maryland's 53-13 vote against secession came on April 29, 1861 when no legislators were arrested, none.
But after the May 6, 1861 Confederate declaration of war it became a matter of treason to give them "aid and comfort".
So there were no more votes on it.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln’s call up of invaders was a de facto declaration of war."

Only if Jefferson Davis' orders to prepare for and then assault Fort Sumter were also "defacto" declarations of war.
Sure, we can "defacto" all day long, but the fact remains that at the time of Confederates' May 6, 1861 declaration of war not a single Confederate soldier had been killed in battle by any Union force and not a single Union army had invaded any Confederate state, nor would it until after Virginians ratified secession and declared war against the United States.

FLT-bird: "The Congress did not approve of him starting the war in the first place by sending a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters"

Congress approved everything Lincoln did and fully supported his war efforts.

FLT-bird: "Ah so they were 'undesirables' in Lincoln’s mind.
Of course many of them were residents of border states and most of them were Democrats - ie his political opponents.
No surprise there."

According to the US Constitution (you should read it someday), when an enemy wages war against the USA, "aid and comfort" are not matters of "undesirables" but of treason.
Big difference.

FLT-bird quoting on Davis & habeas corpus: "During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. "

Still, there was the small matter of 3,000 East Tennessee Unionists arrested & held without trial, a percentage of the Confederate population equivalent to Lincoln's arrests.
And that's not to mention events like the Shelton Laurel massacre in Western NC.
So don't tell me Confederates treated their opposition better than Lincoln did.

FLT-bird: "It was offered.
Anybody who reads Lincoln’s inaugural address can see that this was the offer made to the original 7 seceding states to return."

No "offer", no "rejection".
So repeat that as often as you like, it's still nothing more than Lost Causer wet dream fantasy.

FLT-bird: "Over time, Industrialization kills off slavery.
This is exactly what happened in the Northern states and throughout the Western world over the course of the 19th century.
It was already killing off slavery in the Upper South as the figures I posted show (lower percentage of families owned slaves, higher percentage of Blacks were freedmen, etc)."

More Lost Causer wet dream fantasy, in this case reversing the true cause & effect.
In the North, which had few slaves to begin with, slavery was abolished first, then came industrialization.
In Border States it wasn't industrialization killing off slavery, it was 1) very high prices for Deep South slaves made slavery unprofitable in Border States and 2) they were so close to Northern free states that many slave-holders promised their slaves freedom in exchange for so many years of faithful service.
Over time that created a huge population of freed slaves in states like Maryland and Delaware.

The fact is that industrialization was completely compatible with slavery, as the 50% slaves working at Richmond's Tredegar Iron works amply demonstrates.

FLT-bird: "It is not a coincidence that Slavery which had existed since before writing suddenly died all over the place in the western world from Russia to the Americas over the course of about 75 years in the 19th century.
Its not like people suddenly and magically became more moral in country after country.
You can’t possibly be that naive."

Oh, but that's exactly what happened, with increasing literacy more people read their bibles and learned its opposition to slavery (i.e., Exodus).
In the North, first came religious revival, then came abolitionism.

As for Russia, their serfs were a different situation and "freedom" meant far less than in countries where freed men voted.

FLT-bird: "It was ALL ABOUT money and you know it, you just don’t want to admit imperial Washington was fighting for grubby motives like war and empire."

Only in the same sense that's true of, for example, the Second World War.
But money alone does not drive nations to war, else WWII would have started for the US in, say, 1930, because of the Great Depression.
So Lost Causers' focus on "money, money, money" is nothing more than your typical inner Democrat accusing others of the very things you are most guilty of.

FLT-bird: "The parties today are nothing like the parties of 150 years ago.
Its ridiculous to even try to compare them."

They are much more like their political ancestors than you want to confess.
Acorns, even political acorns, don't fall far from their trees.