I know it wasn't all 11 states, but in our modern discussions of this, it has become common place to accept that this minority of states represents the majority. Dishonest, that."
See my post #649 for a closer look at the more important "Reasons for Secession" documents.
Yes, there were well more than four.
DiogenesLamp: ""Federal Properties" is just the token excuse.
Fort Sumter was useless..."
So claims DiogenesLamp, but people of that time felt differently.
As many Lost Causers here have pointed out, Confederates in April 1861 did not consider Fort Sumter "useless", but so vital and dangerous to them it had to be attacked militarily if not immediately surrendered.
So Fort Sumter was very valuable to Confederates.
As for Sumter's value to the Union, it was just one of a series of forts built to protect US harbors after the War of 1812 against any similar threats.
Sure, time rendered it obsolete, but that was far from obvious in 1861.
Indeed, from April 1863 until war's end Fort Sumter proved very valuable to Confederates in protecting Charleston against Union assault.
Similar forts to Sumter continued in use, Fort Jefferson in the Florida Keys until 1900, Fort Pickens near Pensacola until 1947.
This site lists dozens of similar US coastal forts kept active well into the 20th century, including four in South Carolina alone.
So your suggestion that Fort Sumter particularly or coastal forts in general were of no use after 1865 is not supported by actual facts.
DiogenesLamp: "Eventually they realized it was no longer worth the trouble to keep up the pretense, and so they just stopped, and it has been basically abandoned ever since. "
Wrong again.
Fort Sumter was restored & maintained until 1876, then again for the Spanish American war after 1898.
It was not finally deactivated as a coastal fort until 1946.
Remember, it was just one of dozens like it whose status & condition changed over time depending on perceived military threats.
DiogenesLamp: ""Federal Properties" my @$$. It always was just an excuse. "
So you keep posting, but with no serious evidence to support it.
The fact is that Jefferson Davis himself knew attacking Fort Sumter would bring down the Union might on him:
- "Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.[15]" -- Robert Toombs, Confederate Secretary of State
DiogenesLamp: "And here is where you just smear people because they are whipping your @$$ in the raw facts of the debate."
But of course you have no facts, none, to support any of your lunatic claims.
It's all just fantasy & Lost Causer wet dreams.
DiogenesLamp: "I don't give a sh*t about full citizenship for freed slaves, and I contend that was going to eventually happen anyways."
Of course you don't, thereby suggesting why your contention is pure fantasy.
DiogenesLamp: "What bothers me is the fact that some Plutocracy that is still running Washington DC today, launched a war over money that killed 750,000 people directly, possibly another 2 million indirectly, destroyed the relationship between the States and the Federal government which the Founders had established, and created the gargantuan borrow and spend monster that is currently eating us alive today."
Total fantasy, Lost Causer wet dream demonstrating only a serious lack of respect for actual historical facts.
DiogenesLamp: "You want to keep the topic on slavery, because it is the only possible way to pretend the civil war was not a horrible disaster, which it was, and it is also the only moral justification of which anyone can think for what was done.
The problem is, it's just wrong.
It isn't supported by the facts, and the Corwin amendment alone should make that clear to any objective person."
No the real problem here is you're just wrong, about your "facts" and "reasons", and seemed consumed by a historical fantasy which has no redeeming value.
You make a big deal of the Corwin Amendment, but Lincoln said it only repeated what the Constitution already implied, so was no change as far as he was concerned.
And it was helpful in keeping Border States in the Union.
Indeed, two months before Corwin submitted his amendment, Senator Jefferson Davis submitted one of his own very similar -- so don't tell me it wasn't about slavery.
Are you calling Jefferson Davis a liar??!