On this date in 1864 President Lincoln receives a Christmas gift.

[Bull Snipe]

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.

[rockrr]

So does this mean we are finished with signing statements?

[DiogenesLamp]

That would apply even more to California if it seceded.

I have no problems with settling up with them financially, but given how much of the national debt they are responsible for, I daresay the result is not likely to be in their favor.

Different situation. There was a Continental Congress that brought all the colonies together. While some colonies were more radical than others, it wasn't a case of some states trying to turn others against England.

Hardly. They tried to turn the Canadian colonies against England. Remember, in those days there was no distinction between US and Canada. They were all exactly the same status as English colonies.

Manipulating Americans into supporting ideas and causes that are ultimately hostile by to the people and the nation in the long run? That was certainly true of Davis and the Fire-Eaters.

Even if that is true, that was 159 years ago, and I am more concerned about what people are doing right now.

Yet you have only kind words for the destroyers a century and a half back.

When I was growing up, I thought the Confederates were the monsters. It has taken me quite a long while to realize that perhaps they were beaten by the real monsters.

I know the ones threatening us today emerged from that war. The Fedzilla is way more powerful as a consequence of that war than it ever would have been had that war not been fought.

[DiogenesLamp]

Only you has been talking about "signing statements." I have been referring to acts of ratification by legislative bodies.

Do you have an example of a contemporaneous legislative body articulating a position that secession is contrary to the US Constitution?

Do you have any actual proof at all that secession was a violation of the US Constitution? Anything from anyone in a position of authority?

[rockrr]

It seems to me that there were two contemporaneous US presidents who believed that there was no specific enumerated prohibition against secession.

It seems to me that one of those presidents said that he was powerless to stop the various secessions, but he did recognize that it was his duty and that he had specific authorizations and powers to deal with law breaking insurrectionists.

When they committed acts of violence and war against the United States he was honor-bound to respond. It wasn’t so much about what the rebels did as it was how they did it...

[x]

I have no problems with settling up with them financially, but given how much of the national debt they are responsible for, I daresay the result is not likely to be in their favor.

California is the state closest to the breakeven point, the one that gets about as much from the federal government as it puts in. But by your logic, US bases and the weapons in them would belong to California if it seceded.

Even if that is true, that was 159 years ago, and I am more concerned about what people are doing right now.

Then stop posting about things that you neither care about or know about.

When I was growing up, I thought the Confederates were the monsters. It has taken me quite a long while to realize that perhaps they were beaten by the real monsters.

Doubtful. People who claim to have "discovered" that the Confederacy was terrible usually were more amenable to such thinking before their supposed conversions. I'm not inclined to find monsters in American history, but if there were monsters, not seeing the slaveowners as monsters is certainly troubling.

I know the ones threatening us today emerged from that war. The Fedzilla is way more powerful as a consequence of that war than it ever would have been had that war not been fought.

No. If you hadn't tried to secede over slavery, you might be able to play that card over some other issue. The government would be weaker if there hadn't been that secession attempt.

The federal government would also be weaker if the Confederacy had won the war or if they had left without a war, but the whole country would be so much weaker that people would be complaining here about the spinelessness of Lincoln for not putting up a fight.

[x]

James Madison called secession:

a practice subversive of all the principles of order and regular government; a practice which leads more directly to public convulsions, and the ruin of popular governments, than any other which has yet been displayed among us.

He wasn't saying it couldn't be done, but he did give the impression that the founders weren't any too keen on the idea.

[jeffersondem]

““domestic insurrections” likely refers to all of the various factions that the Royal government was stirring up against the colonial rebels, not just one. This would have included the slaves responding the Dunmore’s, Mohawk and Seneca Indians being recruited by Loyalists up in New York, and Loyalist militias throughout the colonies.”

There are at least three things, I believe, that needs to be reviewed to determine the meaning of the charge “he has excited domestic insurrections amongst us . . .”

The three things: the rough draft of the DOI, the final version of the DOI, and Jefferson's contemporaneous notes.

Some have said the charge referred to loyalists insurrections. In fact, in the rough draft there are these words: “he has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.”

But this charge of loyalist treason sponsored by the folks back home - and other intemperate remarks - were struck from the final version of the DOI.

Jefferson in his notes states why: “The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense.”

Note the words, “struck out.”

Some say the reference to domestic insurrections refers to Indian warfare. The rough draft contains this charge: “he has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions of existence.” This stand- alone charge (rough draft) was separate from the soon-to-be struck loyalist treason reference, and separate from Jefferson's lengthy, anti-slavery philippic.

Compare the rough draft “merciless Indian savages” with the final draft “merciless Indian savages “ text. They are virtually the same. Net: Jefferson didn't mince words or use euphemisms when it came to merciless Indian savages. There is no mistaking when he referenced them.

So does that mean the term “excited domestic insurrections amongst us” refers to slave insurrections? Yes.

Read the text (rough draft) of the anti-slavery philippic.

“he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them to slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportations thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold this execrable commerce and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms against us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

There can be no doubt Jefferson was referring to slave rebellions when he wrote “exciting those very people to rise in arms against us . . .”

But what happened to all this language in the final version of the DOI?

Jefferson's notes tell us: “The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

Thus the word slavery, and its condemnation, does not appear in the final DOI and the 50-plus words relating to rising in arms and murder is distilled to “he has excited domestic insurrections amongst us . . .”

It is helpful to consider these documents in the context of the Dunmore Proclamation and Virginia's responding resolution which began: “WHEREAS Lord Dunmore, by his proclamation, dated on board the ship William, off Norfolk, the 7th day of November 1775, hath offered freedom to such able-bodied slaves as are willing to join him, and take up arms, against the good people of this colony, giving thereby encouragement to a general insurrection . . .”

[Bull Snipe]

“it wouldn’t grow enough to feed anyone.”
Yes it will. Berries, nuts, grasses feed people. When not cultivated, the land don’t feed a lot of people.

“Not when it allows the retention of other property that allows the Confederates the ability to make war.”

What property allowing the Confederates to make war, did Lincoln allow them to have?

“But how much more blood and treasure was expended because he did not apply the same measure to all property used to support the Confederacy”

What property did Lincoln exempt from seizure, or destruction allowing the Confederacy to continue the war.

An Army of a million men and a Navy of 500 ships does not seem like half measures. Sufficient to destroy all of the Armies of the Confederacy. Once the last Confederate Army surrendered. There was no more Confederacy.

“because doing it for political reasons was completely illegal”

Cite the law that makes it illegal. All war is fought for political reasons.
No one makes war just for something to do in their spare time. There is always a political objective in war.

[jeffersondem]

“There is always a political objective in war.”

And economic reasons too.

Perhaps someone can cite an example where a nation were to war to deliberately damage their own long-term economic situation.

[rustbucket]

I've pointed out Jefferson's original draft to BroJoeK in the past. jeffersondem's excellent reply (post 1,127 on this thread) does too.

PBS published some information about how Lord Dunmore's Proclamation resulted in actions by blacks against American patriots. See: PBS link: Africans in America, Revolutionary War, I excerpt the following:

The Governor of Virginia, whose royal title was Lord Dunmore, on the other hand, sought to disrupt the American cause by promising freedom to any slaves owned by Patriot masters who would join the Loyalist forces. (Runaway slaves belonging to Loyalists were returned to their masters.) Dunmore officially issued his proclamation in November, 1775, and within a month 300 black men had joined his Ethiopian regiment. Probably no more than 800 eventually succeeded in joining Dunmore’s regiment, but his proclamation inspired thousands of runaways to follow behind the British throughout the war.

…

Colonel Tye was perhaps the best-known of the Loyalist black soldiers. As an escaped bondman born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, he wreaked havoc for several years with his guerilla Black Brigade in New York and New Jersey. At one time he commanded 800 men. For most of 1779 and 1780, Tye and his men terrorized his home county – stealing cattle, freeing slaves, and capturing Patriots at will. On September 1, 1780, during the capture of a Patriot captain, Tye was shot through the wrist, and he later died from a fatal infection.

Sounds like “domestic insurrections” to me.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "Your numbers have been cherry-picked, Joey.
The Morrill Tariff signaled a return to cronyism."

Referring to this chart:

Commodity	1846 Tariff	1857 Tariff	Morrill
Woolens	30	24	37
Brown Sugar	30	24	26
Cotton	25	19	25
Iron mfg	30	24	29
Wines	40	30	40
Average:	31	24	31

Those five items represented about half of US imports.
Another six items added 25% -- silk, coffee, molasses, flax, hemp & tea -- for which I don't have numbers.
But we can notice that some of those are luxury items only purchased by wealthy people able to pay higher tariffs.

So the numbers I've seen show the original Morrill proposal signaled a return to the 1846 Walker Tariff levels.
That makes "cronyism" just your own special Democrat propaganda talk.

Kalamata: "A tariff is constitutional, Joey, if applied equally and fairly; but tariffs eventually became a political tool – pay for play."

Danny-child, that is pure nonsense baby-talk.
You have no clue what you really mean.
The truth is that all laws & tariffs are political and all of politics is, in a sense, "pay for play", meaning: if you have the votes you get to call the tune.

The fundamental principle of all protective tariffs in 1790, in 1860 and with President Trump today is: "put Americans first".
If that's just too, too much for your tiny little Democrat heart to accept, well, then... get over it, snowflake.

Kalamata: "BTW, it was Hamilton who promoted a crony-capitalist economy to favor the wealthy and politically connected.
Clay was a Hamiltonite, and deep in bed with the bankers."

And it was James Madison who proposed the Tariff of 1790, President Washington who signed it.
Under Southern Democrat rule in Washington, DC, average tariff rates went up & down -- down to 10% in 1810, up to 20% in 1820.
And that with support from not just Henry Clay, but also SC Senator Calhoun.
Later, Calhoun decided higher tariffs were not such a good idea, but in the beginning he supported them.

Kalamata: "That is misleading.
The exporters favored standardized rates.
The Whigs favored item-by-item rates to subsidize politically-connected Northern interests."

That is misleading.
All exporters (i.e., Democrats) favored higher tariffs to protect their own products but some wanted lower tariffs on stuff they imported.
Other producers (i.e., Whigs-Republicans) were willing to accept higher tariffs in order to, ahem, "put Americans first" and "make America great".

Did you get that?
Democrats, then as now, were wealthy globalists who put their own interests ahead of average Americans.
Whig-Republicans, then as now, put Americans first in order to make America great.

Kalamata: "If Trump is an orange (no pun intended,) the Whigs were apples.
The “Republican” Party of Lincoln inherited Whig economics, which Lincoln promoted throughout his entire political career, as did his hero, Henry Clay."

When it comes to putting Americans first and making America great, G. Washington, Clay, Lincoln, Trump and many others from TR to Reagan are all peas in the same pod.

Kalamata: "With Joey, it is never about facts, but about “winning.”"

Says our house Democrat, projecting his own feelings onto others.

Kalamata: "That was, effectively, a declaration of war against a foreign nation.
When Montgomery secretly moved his troops to a more fortified position (Fort Sumter,) that showed an intention to declare war, at least in the minds of the Carolinians, which was “confirmed” when a resupply ship showed up."

A little senior moment there?
"Montgomery" could refer to Davis' capital in Alabama.
"Montgomery" was also our allied British general in WWII.
But likely, here you intended to say, Union Major Robert Anderson.

Your point is somewhat valid nonetheless.
We are now in December 1860, South Carolinians only have declared secession, were already threatening Union officials, and Maj. Anderson, fearing for his troops safety, moved them from the exposed Fort Moultrie to the much safer Fort Sumter.
South Carolinians, typical Democrats, were outraged and demanded Fort Sumter's surrender, which President Buchanan refused.
Instead, Buchanan ordered Fort Sumter reinforced, leading to the Star of the West incident on January 9, 1861.

Understand, war could have started right there, January 9, at Fort Sumter -- South Carolinians were eager for it, many in the North were ready to respond (see OIFVeteran's posts on this), but Buchanan backed down, as he did elsewhere, leaving the questions of war & peace to his successor, Lincoln.

First on December 28, then again on January 13, Buchanan told South Carolina envoys he will not surrender Fort Sumter.
On January 14, same day as the Star of the West, South Carolina's legislature declares any attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter is tantamount to war.

Three times, on January 11, 13 & 16, South Carolina demanded Major Anderson surrender Fort Sumter.
Three times Anderson refused.
On February 5, President Buchanan again tells SC officials that Fort Sumter will not be surrendered.
All this time a similar drama played out at Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Florida.

On February 21, three days after his inauguration, Jefferson Davis in Montgomery received SC Governor Pickens' request for immediate action on Fort Sumter.
Davis responded immediately by ordering Confederate Gen. Beauregard to prepare for military assault on Union troops in the fort.

All this before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4.

Kalamata: "Later, after Montgomery [sic] warned Lincoln that he could not defend the fort, Lincoln’s cabinet, including Seward, voted almost unanimously against resupply, with Seward explaining that he 'would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding states [e.g., Fort Sumter.]' "

And that seems also to have been Lincoln's view at the time, it's what lead to talk of some sort of deal, i.e., "a fort for a state", meaning Virginia.
But all of them eventually came around to supporting Lincoln's resupply missions to Forts Sumter & Pickens, despite the risks.

Kalamata: "But Lincoln ignored his cabinet and pressed ahead with a scheme of “sending bread to Anderson,” to provoke the South into firing the first shot.
Lincoln was, after all, a high-powered railroad lawyer, who had mastered the rhetoric of effective propaganda."

Propaganda is you Democrats' weapon of choice, for example, in calling a constitutionally elected & constrained President Lincoln, "tyrant".
That's propaganda, FRiend.

Anyway, by the end of March Lincoln's cabinet had all changed their minds and supported Lincoln's resupply missions.
One reason was the Gustavus Fox plan to resupply Sumter without the need for a massive invasion.
It had a good chance to work and if it failed, well, then the Union would be united behind whatever came next.

Kalamata on Lincoln: "Yes he did.
He made it crystal clear in his inaugural that he rejected the constitutional authority of the states to secede, thus craftily reframing any resistance by them into “insurrection” and “rebellion,” rather than recognizing them as sovereign states.
Lincoln was a tyrant."

Well... here are Lincoln's actual 1st Inaugural words:

"Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it?
One party to a contract may violate it -- break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself.
The Union is much older than the Constitution.
It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774.
It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778.
And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was "to form a more perfect Union."
But if [the] destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, -- that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.
Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary.
I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that will constitutionally defend and maintain itself."

I agree with Lincoln and there's nothing "tyrannical" about it.
The real tyranny came from those who used military force attempting to first dissolve the Union without mutual consent then invaded states which refused to secede with them.

Kalamata: "That is correct.
The South offered to pay for the forts and other properties recovered from the Union, but Lincoln rejected it."

As did President Buchanan before him.

Kalamata: "Lincoln effectively declared war in his first inaugural.
He told the seceding states to either consent to be governed by the Federal Government, or die."

Well... as for "declaring war", Confederates had claimed any number of Union actions "acts of war" or "declarations of war" from Day One.
But the only real declaration of war came from the Confederate Congress, on May 6, 1861.

Kalamata on Lincoln's resupply mission to Fort Sumter: "That was an act of war."

Child.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata's post #547 is quite lengthy, so I'll split it up into pieces, this being the first of them.

Kalamata: "Acts-of-war are acts-of-war, Joey.
Major Anderson's dumb move was the first.
The second was when Buchanan ordered the reinforcement and resupply of the Fort"

Right, Danny-child, you insane Democrats, then as now, were calling every defense of America "illegal", "impeachable", "acts of war", etc., etc.
When it comes to hating America, Democrats were just as rabid in 1860 as you are today.

Kalamata on Buchanan's refusal to surrender Fort Sumter: "That was an act of war."

Right, in your insane Democrat mindset, any actions in defense of the USA are "acts of war" or "impeachable offenses" or "illegal measures" against... well, in those days against secessionist states, these days against sanctuary states, among others.

Kalamata: "Acts-of-war are acts-of-war, Joey.
Pretending those were peace initiatives will never alter that fact that they were threats against sovereign states."

Only in the minds of insane Democrats.

Kalamata: "I will agree that Lincoln was a psychopath, and a true democrat."

Sorry, FRiend, but as Jeremiah 13:23 reminds us, the tiger doesn't change its stripes, a leopard doesn't change its spots and you Democrats have been the same forever.
So today you don't get to project your own behaviors onto Republicans like a Lincoln or Trump.

Kalamata: "This fellow also believed that Lincoln was a true democrat:

"[I]n an instance of urgent necessity, an official of a democratic, constitutional state will be acting more faithfully to his oath of office if he breaks one law in order that the rest may operate unimpeded... "
[Rossiter, Clinton, "Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies."
Princeton University Press, 1948, pp.228-220]

Well... First: every President has responded to some emergency or opportunity not previously contemplated, for example, President Jefferson himself said his Louisiana Purchase was not constitutional.
In every case Congress & courts responded by either accepting the President's actions, adjusting laws accordingly, or strengthening laws to prevent future similar actions.

In Lincoln's case, all of his actions were ultimately accepted by both Congress and the Supreme Court.

You Democrats of course, then as now, went berserk seeing a strong Republican strongly defending our nation.
As Solomon tells us (Eccl 1:9-14): and so there is nothing new under the sun.

Kalamata: "That statement could just as easily apply to Hitler.
Obviously, Rossiter, a devout Lincolnite, believed the deception that a constitutional system of government can be saved by destroying it, thus demonstrating that Rossiter, also, was a true democrat."

You know, FRiend, by long-standing Free Republic rules, when you throw out the "Hitler card" it means you've lost the argument and are effectively surrendering abjectly.

And... Second, every word like "democrat", "republican", "liberal" or "conservative" has somewhat different upper case and lower case definitions.
For example, a "liberal" in Jefferson's time referred to people like Jefferson, who named his own political party "Democratic Republicans" -- Jefferson himself saw no irony or conflict in putting those two words together.
In that sense, we are all democrats and republicans.

But the Upper-Case Democrat party is a very different creature, from its beginning in Jefferson's time representing a set of political & operational pathologies which have occasionally benefitted our nation, but more often proved catastrophic to it, the chief example being Civil War.
These pathologies can be summarized under terms like, "anti-Federalism", "nullification", "slavery", "secession", "rebellion", "Black Codes", "segregation", "KKK terrorism", "mass internments", "welfare state" and now "sanctuary cities", "open borders", "anti-law enforcement", etc.
And the central theme which unites all these Democrat pathologies is the use of government to enforce special privileges for Democrat voters, be they the old-time slaveholders or today's welfare plantations.

So what drives you Democrats berserk beyond reason is seeing such special privileges withdrawn and/or given to others who are not your faithful voter base.
It's why you Democrats declared secession in 1860 and impeachment in 2019.

Kalamata: "It is not about winning or losing, Joey, but seeking the truth."

But, Danny-child, you've never "sought the truth", only so much of it as can be twisted to support your own pro-Confederate allegiances.
That's why you lose.

This is enough for now, will continue later...

[OIFVeteran]

One thing I want to touch on here, if unilateral secession was something the founders wanted states to be able to do, wouldn't they have devised a procedure and put it in the constitution?

From what I've read of the constitutional convention there wasn't even talk of creating such a process.

And if there is no process spelled out in the constitution, than the President, or congress, has no power to make/recognize that a state is outside the Union? As Lincoln said in his first inaugural;

"The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor."

So if there is no process for states to leave the union it is not legal under the constitution. It is outside the law, i.e. rebellion.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata's post #547, continued #2...

Kalamata: "...Lincoln made it crystal clear in his inaugural that he rejected the constitutional authority of the states to secede, thus craftily reframing any resistance by them into “insurrection” and “rebellion,” rather than recognizing them as sovereign states.
I cannot say this enough: Lincoln was a tyrant."

You can say that all you want -- like any Democrat propagandist you believe that repeating your lies often enough will somehow make them true -- but your lies are still lies regardless.

Because, not only Lincoln, but also Democrat President Buchanan rejected secession's claim to constitutional legitimacy, as did many others in states outside the original Deep South Seven.

Further, armed resistance to lawful authority is the very definition of "insurrection" and "rebellion".
So Lincoln invented nothing new.
The only question in 1861 was: had such armed resistance happened?
Before Fort Sumter most Unionists said, "no", afterwards most said, "yes".

Kalamata: "The point is, Montgomery considered Sumter to be more secure than Moultrie, so he secretly relocated his troops there, committing an act of war."

I see your one-time "senior moment" has now evolved into "stuck on stupid" -- unless by "Montgomery" you refer to Davis' capital in Alabama, you meant to say: Union Maj. Anderson.

As for the alleged "act of war", that's just you insane Democrats going berserk as usual.

Kalamata on collecting tariffs off-shore: "That would also be an act of war."

In the minds of insane Democrats, the same people who now tell us asking for investigations of crooked Democrats is impeachable!

Kalamata: "Lincoln considered free trade going through the ports of Charleston to be a serious threat to his crony Whig agenda."

Some Northerners, not Lincoln, expressed such fears, but it was a fantasy since Confederates never even considered adopting "free trade".
Their original tariffs were basically the old Union tariffs of 1857 -- nothing "free trade" about that.

Kalamata: "Lincoln knew exactly what he was doing.
He was a greedy, power-hungry crony capitalist for his entire professional and political life."

Only according to the same insane Democrats who tell us the same sort of things about every real Republican president, including our current one!

Kalamata: "Again, Lincoln considered free trade going through the ports of Charleston to be a serious threat to his Whig agenda.
This is a part of conversation between Lincoln and Colonel Baldwin, a Virginia delegate, prior to Virginia's secession:"

Once again, that post-war quote from Confederate Congressman & Col. Baldwin is totally bogus, made-up long after the fact and corroborated by nobody at the time.

And now my time is up again, will return later...

[x]

I see your one-time "senior moment" has now evolved into "stuck on stupid" -- unless by "Montgomery" you refer to Davis' capital in Alabama, you meant to say: Union Maj. Anderson.

Montgomery was indeed Davis's first capital. There's also the old story that Maj. Anderson's daughter and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair's son had a love child, who became the mother of the actor Montgomery Blair. She believed it anyway.

More trivia: the once-famous writer George Plimpton was the descendant of Benjamin Butler, Adalbert Ames, and Oakes Ames, two Civil War generals and a politician from the same era. The two Ameses were not related.

[Bull Snipe]

Adalbert Ames died at 98 years old in April 1933, He was the last Regular Army General of the Union Army to die

[x]

I should have said, "the actor Montgomery Clift," but I think everybody knows who I meant.

More Trivia: the actor Robert Duvall (whose father was an admiral) thinks his mother was related to Rpbert E. Lee. Maybe she was and maybe she wasn't. His father's family weren't Confederates. One relative was named Abraham Lincoln Duvall, and that might have made young Abe very unpopular growing up in Virginia. But if you go back far enough, the Duvalls were bluebloods in Colonial Maryland.

[DiogenesLamp]

California is the state closest to the breakeven point, the one that gets about as much from the federal government as it puts in.

That is a very simplistic and inaccurate way to judge California's debt responsibility.

California representatives and Senators voted to keep the Federal spending at ridiculously high levels. Their costs are commensurate with their support in running up the debt.

The nation currently owes something like 20 trillion in acknowledged debt, and about 150 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Again, mostly thanks to liberal states like New York and California. (Though California was not so Liberal in the past.)

Then stop posting about things that you neither care about or know about.

In order to solve a problem, one must know how one came to arrive at this condition.

I'm not inclined to find monsters in American history, but if there were monsters, not seeing the slaveowners as monsters is certainly troubling.

The difference here is that the North had slaveowners too, but did not care to do anything about the beam in their own eye. Therefore I don't give much credibility to their protestations of immorality on the part of others.

The immorality was a post hoc excuse to justify what they did, and what they did was to invade other people because they wanted to protect their money streams. And this is a significant point.

They didn't do what they did because of slavery. Indeed, they were bending over backwards to protect slavery just to keep control of that money engine and to protect their own markets.

Therefore they have no moral high ground from which to lecture the same Southern slaveholders they would have kept in business had they kept control of the money stream.

No. If you hadn't tried to secede over slavery, you might be able to play that card over some other issue.

Here we go again with this "slavery" business as if that had a f***ing thing to do with why the Federal government invaded these people.

Because you constantly focus on "slavery" as some significant point, you inherently assert that some other reason would have been justifiable.

Your only moral position is this: Disunion is illegal for any reason.

By making it only about slavery, you are instead arguing, "Disunion is only wrong when we don't like the reason."

The federal government would also be weaker if the Confederacy had won the war or if they had left without a war, but the whole country would be so much weaker that people would be complaining here about the spinelessness of Lincoln for not putting up a fight.

Weaker how? Unable to defend itself from foreign encroachment? I don't think it would have made any difference at all. When it comes to defense, the nation would have been as strong as it ever needed to be. The only difference is that the gargantuan federal government would serve only those purposes for which it was created rather than become some vast piggy bank for crony capitalists to raid, and for the rest of us to pay for.

[DiogenesLamp]

Very good. It must have been you that rendered unto BroJoeK his spanking on this point. I recall at the time that the argument was very good, and this argument you have now put forth is very good.

[DiogenesLamp]

What property allowing the Confederates to make war, did Lincoln allow them to have?

Land, horses, cattle.

An Army of a million men and a Navy of 500 ships does not seem like half measures.

Why did it take four years?

Cite the law that makes it illegal. All war is fought for political reasons.

Due process. Article 4, section 2.