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DiogenesLamp to OIFVeteran: "So on the one hand you use the statements actually issued by secession conventions, but in the case of Virginia, you let cherry picked individuals speak for the whole State."

The fact is, Upper South Virginians refused to secede over just the issues Deep South states expressed in their "Reasons for Secession" documents.
Some Virginians did secede after Fort Sumter because, they said, that action satisfied their Constitution ratifying statement requiring "injury or oppression".

But the fact remains that in the part of Virginia which declared secession slaves made up 40% of their population and in Union Western Virginia only 5%.
So it's impossible to argue that slavery was not a big part of why some Virginians decided to secede and others did not.

DiogenesLamp "And i'm ignoring your attempts to twist a reference to "Slave Holding States" into an articulation of secession over slavery.
Again, Slavery was legal in the Union, and would have remained so with or without secession. "

And yet throughout the South those states & counties with the highest numbers of slaves voted most solidly for secession while those with no or few slaves voted Union.
So DiogenesLamp simply choses to ignore the obvious.

DiogenesLamp "Attempts to drag the issue back to slavery are post hoc justifications for invading states and killing people who only wanted to be free of what they came to regard as an oppressive government which no longer served their interests."

Among the Big Lies our Lost Causers advance this is one of the biggest -- Confederates "only wanted to be free".
For starters they wanted to take with them at least 15 of 33 states and two or three of seven US territories (1860 boundaries).
And they cared less if those states wanted to secede or not, Confederate troops marched into any Union state or territory they could reach, from Maryland all the way to New Mexico.

DiogenesLamp: "Also, the Secessionists do not have to justify wanting out.
The people who have to justify what they did are the ones who started the killing in order to force people to remain under their control. "

Those would be Confederate military forces in the Union states/territories of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma & New Mexico.

DiogenesLamp: "The North invaded the South.
The North did not do this because of slavery.
The North did this to impose economic *CONTROL* on the South. "

The Union did not invade Confederate states until after Confederates provoked, started, declared and began waging war in Union states.
As for "why", why did the US go to war after 12/7/41 and 9/11/01?
Because we were attacked, no other reasons are necessary.

DiogenesLamp: "The North invaded to protect the pockets of wealthy and powerful businessmen that backed Lincoln and colluded with every corruptocrat in Washington DC. "

That's just insane nonsense, no more true of the Civil War than of any other US war.

DiogenesLamp "Then they made up a bunch of bullsh*t about doing it because of "slavery."
They did it over money, not slavery.
They didn't give a f*** about slavery, but they cared deeply about losing money as a result of Southern independence."

Of course Northerners cared a lot about slavery, among other reasons because by 1863 they realized the Confederacy could never be fully defeated unless slavery was also destroyed.

Among the Big Lies our Lost Causers advance this is one of the biggest -- Confederates "only wanted to be free". For starters they wanted to take with them at least 15 of 33 states and two or three of seven US territories (1860 boundaries).

They would have taken a lot more than that. Once the New York based coalition couldn't control the economics of trade with Europe, first the border states would move to the stronger economic horse, and then the midwest would move there too.

With a successful independence, the South would have found numerous other states coming into their sphere of influence due to the economic advantages of doing so. The only people who would have been hurt were the wealthy Northern manufacturers, shippers and so forth. The very people backing Lincoln and his efforts to stop direct Southern trade with Europe.

If left alone, the Nation would have come to look like this relatively quickly.

This was the natural destiny for those states outside of the influence of New York power. This is what would have happened eventually because of economic and social resonance once the New York powers were held back.

New York is still feeding streams of lies into our national consciousness. They are fighting back against their eventual loss of power to the normal people of America.