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...