Man Born in 1846 Talks About the 1860s and Fighting in the Civil War

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Julius Franklin Howell (January 17, 1846 - June 19, 1948) joined the Confederate Army when he was 16. After surviving a few battles, he eventually found himself in a Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland.

In 1947, at the age of 101, Howell made this recording at the Library of Congress.

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Seven states had already voted (more or less) to secede from the union.

This is true, but it does not address the moral question of why the Republicans voted to keep slavery forever.

Whatever Lincoln and the Republicans hoped, they weren’t coming back.

The offer of permanent slavery was not sufficient to convince them to come back. (Clearly they wanted something else.) But this does not address the moral question of why the Republicans voted to keep slavery forever.

They felt that slavery and their control over the enslaved population would only be secure in their own country.

This is a straw man argument. *YOU* are saying what you think *THEY* thought without having any real knowledge of it. It is subjective speculation on your part, and from my view, it does not comport with the known facts. Slavery had been secure for "four score and seven years", and there was no reason to believe that with the Corwin Amendment it would not have remained secure till every state gave it up.

The Trouble with your view is that it ignores the enormous amount of money coming out of their (Southern) pockets and going into the machine that is the DC / Northern Corporate coalition. (And it is still the corruption machine running our government today.)

But the Corwin Amendment largely worked. The Border States Kentucky and Maryland ratified it, and the amendment did much to convince Democrats that the government would not challenge slavery where it existed.

I wouldn't say "largely" I would say "partially", but you are right about this. It very likely did convince the border states to remain. There are always gullible people who are willing to believe what the government is telling them, and they only need a straw to grasp to convince them to believe.

The Upper South states also would reject secession, until Sumter convinced them to go the other way.

Unlike modern people learning biased history, they probably learned that Lincoln had sent the fleet which initiated the attack. They heard the real scoop, not the propaganda of a "supply mission."

You have ignored my posts every time I said that secessionists feared that the Republicans would build up an anti-slavery party through their appointment power, first in the Border States, then in the Upper South, then perhaps even in the Deep South. The fear was that slavery would be ever more restricted as the Republican Party grew in states that were less committed to slavery, thus leaving the Cotton States outvoted and isolated. That was the real fear that drove the movement after Lincoln was elected. That, and the idea that without a national border abolitionists would inspire slave revolts and escapes.

There was no explicitly anti-slavery party for the first 60 or 70 years of the country, and that was why union was tolerable to the Deep South. In spite of your theories, it is well documented that the slave owners of South Carolina and other parts of the South regarded the "Black Republicans" as a deadly threat to slavery and their whole way of life. An improvised attempt to appease them with an ill-conceived constitutional amendment could not convince them to remain in the union, since they understood that their power could be challenged in other ways and feared that the tide was turning against slavery, first in the Border States, and then further south.

Interesting note from David Potter's The Impending Crisis:

When John Slidell made a farewell address before leaving the Senate after Louisiana's secession, he declared that Lincoln's inauguration would have been regarded by the slaves as "the day of their emancipation." Congressional Globe, 36 Cong, 2 sess., pp. 720-721. Also, on Dec. 12, 1860, John Bell wrote a public letter in which he said the "simple announcement to the public that a great party at the North, opposed to slavery, has succeeded in electing its candidate to the Presidency, disguise it as we may, is well calculated to raise expectations among slaves, and might lead to servile insurrection in the Southern States." Quoted in Mary Emily Robertson Campbell, The Attitude of Tennesseans toward the Union 1847-1861 (New York, 1961), pp. 147-148.

Potter tells us that the Corwin Amendment only received 40% of Republicans' votes in the House. It needed Democrat votes to pass. That wasn't a ringing endorsement or a great sign for slave owners.

Potter also writes:

Yet it was the territorial aspect of the Crittenden compromise that Republicans rejected most emphatically and that southerners demanded most insistently. At the same time, in their support of the Corwin amendment giving slavery within the slave states an everlasting constitutional guarantee, many Republicans acquiesced in what now seems an appallingly greater concession to the South; but southerners in Congress for the most part treated the concession as a "mere bagatelle. " There are numerous explanations for this double anomaly, including Republican fear of southern expansionism and southern hunger for a Republican disavowal of Republicanism. Perhaps also mere habit held both sides to the familiar line of controversy. But in addition, it appears that neither North nor South had anything more than a muddled understanding of what was at issue between them, or what they wanted from each other.

Whether the Republicans or the compromisers were wiser and more patriotic in their conduct remains a subject of scholarly dispute that has sometimes recaptured with admirable felicity the rancorous spirit of congressional debates in the secession winter. Much depends, of course, upon one's retrospective prediction of the results of a Crittenden success, and here the importance of timing must be emphasized. Given the amount of resistance that secessionists had to overcome in much of the deep South, it is not difficult to agree with the judgment of Douglas that "if the Crittenden proposition could have been passed early in the session, it would have saved all the States, except South Carolina. "For Congress to have acted so swiftly and so forcefully would have been spectacular enough in itself to give secessionists pause, aside from the substance of the concessions offered. But such expeditious behavior at the opening of a session would have been unnatural at any time and all the more unlikely in the extraordinary confusion of December 1860. Douglas of all people must have known that a Union-saving compromise achieved by New Year's Day was something too improbable to be regarded, in retrospect, as a viable historical alternative.

What seems to have been much more within the realm of possibility is a compromise achieved late in the session—after all doubts about the reality of disunion had been dispelled, after the outpouring of northern petitions and editorials in support of Crittenden, after the influence of the border states and the Peace Conference had been felt. But such a compromise, one must recognize, would have been relatively limited in its immediate effects. The Crittenden formula, whatever it might have accomplished if adopted in December, was by March viewed primarily as a means of holding the upper South and thus halting the progress of secession. No one expected that it would be enough alone to turn back the clock and dissolve the new Confederacy.

You accuse me of being some kind of mind-reader. That applies to you as well. You think some conclusion to be obvious and think that the people at the time would have thought as you do. The only way to discover what people actually thought is to look at what they thought and said, and you don't do that. Timing is everything in politics, and few things are as simple or as logical or as straightforward as they appear to outside observers.

Note: This is in response to BroJoeK’s many posts. However, he has copied you on his posts so I am including you, as well, as apparently you have some interest in the topic.)

“The fact remains, regardless of your fogging, the term ‘Lost Cause’, so far as we know, was first applied to the US Civil War by Virginian Edward Pollard’s 1866 book titled ‘The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates.’”

That is not what you originally said. Originally, you did not qualify your statement by saying, “...first applied to the Civil War.” Yours was a blanket statement about the term “lost cause” FIRST being used by Pollard. I proved you wrong. Now, you are qualifying your original statement. You should have done that at the beginning.

“Pollard was an actual Confederate, nothing ‘neo’ about him.”

But, of course, the topic is about his book, not his veteran status. And it is the title of his book, and its content — not his veteran status — that has you guys clutching your pearls. It is YOUR side that has branded anyone who has an opposing argument about the war as a “neo-confederate.” Just as today anyone who supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion is quickly branded a “neocon.” As I mentioned previously, the two terms have become meaningless.

“No, not really, because by a reasonable definition, “paleo-Confederate” would refer to, for example, Alexander Stephens in his “Cornerstone Speech”, but not in his post-war Lost Cause opinions.”

No. Again you obfuscate. You guys have branded as “neo-Confederates” those who find credence with Pollard’s argument. The term “neo-Confederate” thus necessarily applies to those who agreed with Pollard post-bellum (his book wasn’t even published until after the war, in 1866). But what Pollard wrote was the prevailing position from the earliest days of the country, at least in the southern, more agrarian states. So, logically, if the “neo-Confederates” are those believers post-bellum, those who held the same belief prior to 1866, would necessarily be “paleo-Confederates.” But, logic escapes you, as you are wholly dependent on others to make an argument, hence your habitual employment of cut-and-paste entries.

“”No, not really, because by a reasonable definition, ‘paleo-Confederate’ would refer to, for example, Alexander Stephens in his ‘Cornerstone Speech’, but not in his post-war Lost Cause opinions.”

I think the reality is much closer to the difference between federalists and anti-federalists, and the conflict that existed between the two since the closing days of the Revolutionary War, rather than just a “Confederate vs. Unionist” or “Rebel vs. Yankee” argument.

Because that is what all this really boils down: The contrast –- and conflict –- between the federalist and the anti-federalist camps that had been roiling ever since the closing days of the Revolutionary War, and came into sharp focus during the period of the Articles of Confederation and later with the adoption of the US Constitution, and continued forward to…well, even today.

The new nation under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781) consisted of 13 states. The Federalist camp thought the national government under the Articles was too weak, and that a new compact (constitution) was needed to correct that defect. Hence, the US Constitution -– which created yet a new nation — was drafted in 1787. Only nine states adopted it, effectively seceding from the nation that existed under the Articles (the other four states remained in the nation established under the Articles –- at least for the short term).

Let’s look at the differences that existed between the two:

FEDERALISTS (Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; et al)

Pro-North
Pro-Urban
Pro-Protectionism
Pro-big and powerful central government
Pro-Modernization
Anti-Populist

ANTI-FEDERALISTS (Thomas Jefferson; Patrick Henry; Richard Henry Lee; et als)

Pro-South
Pro-Rural
Pro-free trade
Pro- small and limited federal government
Pro-agrarian democracy
Pro-Populist
Pro-states’ rights

It should be noted that James Madison saw the inevitable conflict between the two, and that such a conflict could destroy the new nation. Hence, Madison has been described as favoring a balance between the two. And he sought a compromise in drafting the Constitution; but even that was not enough to allay all the concerns of all the states.

Several states as well as the Anti-Federalists feared the power of the central government established under the Constitution, that such a government would be hostile toward the popular sovereignty of the respective states and their citizens, and sought to limit that power by the inclusion in the Constitution of the ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights. Indeed, some states – including Massachusetts and New York! —refused to ratify the Constitution unless it included a Bill of Rights that tethered central government power.

As I have mentioned previously, Abraham Lincoln was a Hamiltonian, and embraced Hamilton’s view of government.

You have to look at this struggle through those glasses, as that was the dominant conflict between the two camps ever since the founding of the United States. Both sides saw the nation differently, and both were convinced of the rightness of their positions. A national schism was inevitable.

But, of course, the victors get to write the history they prefer gets passed down to posterity, even to include erasing the history of the vanquished.

Now, as for Stephens.

Stephens argued that the “black race” was subordinate to the “white race,” as that was how the US Constitution recognized it (and so did Abraham Lincoln): The Constitution provided for representative government based on the total number of persons within the respective states, “…by adding to the whole of free persons, including (indentured servants), and excluding non-taxed Indians, 3/5 of all other persons (i.e., slaves).”

We can disagree with that, but our opinion is from a point much later than those of the Founders or of those living in the 19th century. The fact of the matter is that slavery -– support it or oppose it (and I oppose it on principle) — in the United States was LEGAL, up until the ratification of the 13th Amendment after the Civil War. The individual STATES could decide for themselves how they wanted to deal with the issue (i.e., it was a states’ rights matter; just as abortion today is a states’ rights matter -– and I oppose abortion on principle, as well). Remember, even Northern states that decided not to further allow slavery, did not abolish it in toto: Most of them allowed for slavery to continue until either the deaths of the owners, the slaves’ attainment of a certain age, or some other futuristic timeline. In other words, it was rare that any Northern state immediately freed any slave.

Because it is speculation and supposition that does not address the money issue. The money issue is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and unless that issue is dealt with squarely, the issue hasn't been dealt with.

The fear was that slavery would be ever more restricted as the Republican Party grew in states that were less committed to slavery, thus leaving the Cotton States outvoted and isolated.

They already were. The US as it was constituted in 1861 was never going to be fair to them, or at least what they regarded as fair. Everything in the government now lopsidedly favored the Northeastern mercantile class, and no one else.

That, and the idea that without a national border abolitionists would inspire slave revolts and escapes.

Well they did in fact do that. Harper's ferry was just a short time earlier.

There was no explicitly anti-slavery party for the first 60 or 70 years of the country, and that was why union was tolerable to the Deep South. In spite of your theories,...

Don't kid yourself. Pressure was building to separate as far back as the 1830s when John Calhoun agitated for secession. What was John Calhoun complaining about? Slavery?

An improvised attempt to appease them with an ill-conceived constitutional amendment could not convince them to remain in the union, since they understood that their power could be challenged in other ways and feared that the tide was turning against slavery, first in the Border States, and then further south.

I'm not interested in what later day people claim was the intent of the amendment. I am interested in pointing out that any government which could pass such an amendment didn't really care about slavery, and therefore slavery was not the primary issue driving the conflict.

Potter tells us that the Corwin Amendment only received 40% of Republicans' votes in the House. It needed Democrat votes to pass. That wasn't a ringing endorsement or a great sign for slave owners.

40% that agreed with Lincoln and Seward. I've seen how DC works it's political games. When they know they have enough votes to pass something, they allow party membership that could be hurt by voting for it to slide. I would not be surprised to learn that this tactic was being used in 1861 too.

You think some conclusion to be obvious and think that the people at the time would have thought as you do.

When the issue is money and income, I know of no person that does not regard it with the utmost seriousness if it affects themselves. Human nature has been pretty consistent about looking out for themselves and their own financial compensation.

It is a rare bird that puts moral considerations above those of his own money and lifestyle.

The only way to discover what people actually thought is to look at what they thought and said, and you don't do that.

I do look at that, but I have never believed their voices spoke as truthfully as their actions. I've lived long enough to know that people will lie to you as much as they think will work, provided they have incentive to lie, and increasing their wealth is always an incentive to lie.

Actions speak louder than words. The North offered slavery, therefore the North was not motivated by a concern for the slaves. The South rejected the North's offer of slavery, so the South was not motivated by a fixation on slavery.

What was the North's motives if not slavery? Well "money" would seem to be the obvious choice. What was the South's motives if not slavery? Well again, "money" would seem to answer that question better than any other suggestion of which I am aware.

>> That, and the idea that without a national border abolitionists would inspire slave revolts and escapes.

> Well they did in fact do that. Harper's ferry was just a short time earlier.

That's not a negation or much or a response to what I said, which was that the secessionists thought an international border would prevent such activism.

I'm not interested in what later day people claim was the intent of the amendment. I am interested in pointing out that any government which could pass such an amendment didn't really care about slavery, and therefore slavery was not the primary issue driving the conflict.

You think you are being logical, but you're not. Slaveowners feared that slavery was threatened. That made slavery and the fears surrounding it the prime motive for secession.

Southern capital was heavily invested in slaves. That made slavery something to be regarded as being of the utmost seriousness. Your childish dreams of Southern economic empire were by comparison airy fantasies.

The North offered slavery, therefore the North was not motivated by a concern for the slaves. The South rejected the North's offer of slavery, so the South was not motivated by a fixation on slavery.

Life is more complicated than it is in your simplistic world. Northerners wanted to preserve the union. That was their primary motivation. They also wanted slavery not to spread. That was why they rejected the Crittenden Compromise. Nobody believes that their primary motivation was loving concern for the slaves.

The slaveowners felt the survival of slavery was at risk and they wanted a government that was completely committed to preserving and protecting slavery. The Deep South States were already gone, but the Corwin Amendment did help to keep the other slave states in the union, at least for a time.

I get so sick of having to repeat all this over and over and over again.

x: "It was indeed all about slavery a..."

DiogenesLamp: "Well this is incorrect.
The North gave them slavery.
Remember that Corwin Amendment?
They didn't have to fight for it at all.
All they had to do was agree to keep letting DC control their trade and finances."

Perhaps the key point here, which DiogenesLamp ignores is, that Corwin did NOT pass in 1860, BEFORE the election, when Deep South Fire Eaters were just threatening secession if "Black Republicans" got elected, but average Southerners might still have been persuaded not to succeed.
And Corwin did NOT pass in early January 1861, after South Carolina seceded, but BEFORE the other six Deep South states had decided what to do.
Nor did Corwin pass in February 1861, BEFORE the seceded states formed their new Confederacy, adopted their Constitution and elected or selected its officials, including President.

No, all of that happened before Corwin passed, and so Corwin was totally irrelevant to the Deep South.

Nor is there any record of Northerners saying they believed Corwin would WIN BACK already seceded Deep South stated.

What Northerners did clearly hope for was to reassure Upper South and Border Slave States, and in that Corwin largely succeeded, at least until Fort Sumter changed Upper South minds.

So, bottom line is, Corwin was never intended to win back already seceded states, but only to help hold onto those slave states still loyal to the Union.

Also, it's well worth noting again that a majority of Republicans voted AGAINST Corwin, so it passed only with unanimous DEMOCRAT support.

BJK: "Civil War started, of course, at Fort Sumter and at first had nothing to do with slavery."

DiogenesLamp: "Started in DC when Lincoln ordered those ships to attack them.
(if they didn't obey. We have *GOT* to put that qualifier in there.)"

Lincoln's orders were, in effect, "no first use of force".
That makes them equivalent to today, when the US sends, for example, warships through the Taiwan straight, despite Chi-Com objections.
The sending of warships through the straight, or resupply ships to Taiwan, is not an "Act of War", regardless of how loudly the Chi-Coms squawk about it.
BUT, if the Chi-Coms fire on our ships, or invade Taiwan, THAT is an "Act of War", period.
Just as Confederates firing on Fort Sumter was an Act of War.

DiogenesLamp: "At first, meaning the actual true cause, it had nothing to do with slavery.
It had to do with a potential loss of 700 million dollars per year into the pockets of the corrupt Wealthy "elite" who are still running the corrupt city of Washington DC today,"

Now you are just fantasizing -- that $700 million would represent the entire South's GDP, roughly 15% of the total United States' $4.4 billion 1860 GDP.
No Northern "elites" were somehow magically removing the South's entire GDP, nor did any Southerner or Northerner of the time claim such nonsense.

More important, at Fort Sumter there were no economic issues -- none, zero -- claimed by either Northerners or Southerners at the time.
Fort Sumter was purely about who would occupy and control the Union fort there.
And for Jefferson Davis, firing the first shots at Fort Sumter was all about bringing Virginia and the Upper South into the Confederacy.

BJK: "Republicans were at pains to reassure slaveholders in Border States that their slaves were not at risk."

DiogenesLamp: "Bait and switch.
This is what con men do, and Lincoln is probably the best one there ever was.
He really did manage to fool all of the people, all of the time.

Border State slaves were not at risk from Federal Government, until ratification of the 13th Amendment freed their slaves, in December 1865, eight months after Lincoln was dead & buried.
Or until they themselves already abolished slavery on their own, as Maryland, West Virginia & Missouri did.

DiogenesLamp: "Not even going to discuss a slavery centered focus on the civil war.
Washington DC offered permanent slavery.
They didn't take the deal."

No, Corwin was not "permanent slavery".

Corwin would not prevent states from abolishing their own slavery, such as Maryland, West Virginia and Missouri did before the 13th Amendment's ratification.
Corwin would not prevent Federal government from abolishing slavery in US Territories.
Corwin would not prevent Federal government from enacting compensated emancipation in Washington, DC.
Corwin would not prevent states or Federal government from enacting laws to restrict the movements of slaves through their jurisdictions.
Corwin would not prevent Federal government from enforcing its ban on imports of foreign slaves.
Corwin would not prevent a future SCOTUS from overturning their 1857 Dred Scott rulings.

In short, as Lincoln said at the time, Corwin made no real change to Constitutional law as Lincoln understood it.
That's why Lincoln did not oppose Corwin.

DiogenesLamp: "The Fact that DC offered it, and the fact that it wasn't what the South wanted, proves to me the war didn't get fought because of slavery, it got fought for another reason..."

No, you have your "facts" wrong!
The "deal" "DC offered" Confederate states was nowhere near as good -- for slavery -- as the deal embodied in their new Confederate constitution.
Hands down, no contest, the Confederate constitution protected slavery vastly better than Corwin ever hoped to.
That's why the original seven Confederate states ignored Corwin.

However, the Border Slave States did like Corwin, a lot, and it may have helped keep Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia and Delaware in the Union.

DiogenesLamp: "...and the most obvious is the huge outflow of money that would have occurred to all the powerful connected people, *IF* the South became independent and they could no longer control it's economics with DC laws."

What seems so blindingly "obvious" to you was not at all "obvious" to those Confederates who first declared secession and then war against the United States.
Not one of them ever mentioned it.

If they never mentioned it, why do you claim it was so "obvious"?

x: "Seven states had already voted (more or less) to secede from the union."

DiogenesLamp: "This is true, but it does not address the moral question of why the Republicans voted to keep slavery forever."

They did not!

The majority of Republicans voted against Corwin.
Corwin only passed because of unanimous Democrat support, not Republicans.
Corwin would not "keep slavery forever," not even close -- as spelled out in detail in my post #96 just above.
Corwin would not prevent states from abolishing their own slavery, or Federal government from abolishing slavery in US territories and Washington, DC, or prevent states from restricting slavery, or prevent SCOTUS from overturning its own Dred Scott rulings.
Corwin would not even prevent Federal government from taxing slavery.
To top it all off, Corwin was highly unconstitutional in that it attempted to restrict what future Constitutional Amendments could or could not say.

That's why the original seven Confederate states never seriously considered Corwin an alternative to their new Confederate constitution.

x: "They felt that slavery and their control over the enslaved population would only be secure in their own country."

DiogenesLamp: "This is a straw man argument.
*YOU* are saying what you think *THEY* thought without having any real knowledge of it.
It is subjective speculation on your part, and from my view, it does not comport with the known facts.
Slavery had been secure for "four score and seven years", and there was no reason to believe that with the Corwin Amendment it would not have remained secure till every state gave it up."

So now, after endlessly mindreading and projecting, DiogenesLamp, your own views onto 1861 Confederates, you wish to claim that's not legitimate??!
{{Guffaaaaaw!}}

The fact is that slavery was never really "secure" before 1861.
Slavery was always subject to both state and Federal restrictions & abolitions in their own territories.
Beginning in 1776 slavery had been under constant attack by Northern abolitionists who successfully removed it from one Northern state after another.

In 1787 the Federal government abolished slavery in the Northwest Territories, an area of approx. 300,000 square miles -- that's the same size as the original six Confederate states (less Texas).
So, by 1860 US slavery had been under assault and in retreat for 84 years, and many Southerners rightly feared it would be further restricted under Republican President Lincoln.

DiogenesLamp: "The Trouble with your view is that it ignores the enormous amount of money coming out of their (Southern) pockets and going into the machine that is the DC / Northern Corporate coalition. (And it is still the corruption machine running our government today.)"

That is pure DiogenesLamp fantasy because nobody at the time complained about such matters.
What they did complain most about was the threat to slavery and thus their "states rights".

"Reasons for Secession" Documents before Fort Sumter

Reasons for Secession	S. Carolina	Mississippi	Georgia	Texas	Rbt. Rhett	A. Stephens	AVERAGE OF 6
Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	20%	20%	24%
Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	35%	50%	48%
States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	15%	10%	14%
Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	5%	0%	3%
Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0%	25%	20%	10%
Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0%	0%	1%

* Alabama listed only slavery in its "whereas" reasons for secession.

** Economic issues include tariffs, "fishing smacks" and other alleged favoritism to Northerners in Federal spending.

DiogenesLamp: "...you are right about this.
It very likely did convince the border states to remain.
There are always gullible people who are willing to believe what the government is telling them..."

No, the truth is there was no Federal threat to slavery in Union Border Slave States throughout the war.
But during and after the war some Border Slave States abolished slavery on their own (Maryland, West Virginia & Missouri) while others did not act before the 13th Amendment's ratification in December 1865 (Delaware & Kentucky), eight months after RE Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

x: The Upper South states also would reject secession, until Sumter convinced them to go the other way."

DiogenesLamp: "Unlike modern people learning biased history, they probably learned that Lincoln had sent the fleet which initiated the attack.
They heard the real scoop, not the propaganda of a "supply mission."

As per usual, DiogenesLamp has it backwards.
In fact, the Upper South states of North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas all followed Virginia's lead and Virginians would not secede until there had been some kind of battle.
That's why Virginians urged Jefferson Davis to start Civil War at Fort Sumter.
Without war Virginia would not secede, with war Virginians would secede immediately.

"These are the words of Virginian Roger Pryor, who, speaking to a Charleston audience on April 10, 1861, said,
’But I assure you that just as certain as tomorrow's sun will rise upon us, just so certain will Virginia be a member of the Southern Confederacy; and I will tell your Governor what will put her in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock. Strike a blow!’
 [Ibid.,_ p. 289]

”That same day, Davis received a telegram from [Fire Eater] Louis T. Wigfall, urging,
’General Beauregard will not act without your order.
Let me suggest to you to send the order to him to begin the attack as soon as he is ready.
Virginia is excited by the preparations, and a bold stroke on our side will complete her purposes.
Policy and prudence are urgent upon us to begin at once.’
[Wigfall to Davis, 10 Apr 1861, quoted in Richard N. Current, _Lincoln and the First Shot,_ p. 151]

The basic reason Jefferson Davis started Civil War at Fort Sumter was to flip Virginia and the other Upper South from Union to Confederacy.
It worked.

That's not a negation or much or a response to what I said, which was that the secessionists thought an international border would prevent such activism.

You wanted more commentary regarding something that seems rather self evident? Yes, I think an international border would likely prevent a lot of efforts to incite slave revolts.

You think you are being logical, but you're not. Slaveowners feared that slavery was threatened.

So we keep being told by their enemies who want this claim to be true because in their mind it justifies what was done to them. That is however, very different from being actually true, and at this point I no longer simply accept what their enemies say about them to be actually true.

That made slavery and the fears surrounding it the prime motive for secession.

Again, according to Northern claims, but still ignoring the massive shift in money that would occur from secession, as a cause. Between you and me, I trust money motivation more so than I do any other concern. We have all of American history and indeed recent history to see examples of money driving everything else.

Southern capital was heavily invested in slaves.

Well yes it was. It was the primary money making system in the South. But it was legal, always had been legal, and would remain legal if they did nothing.

That made slavery something to be regarded as being of the utmost seriousness.

If there were any real threats to it, which there weren't. People who were serious about money could not help but notice that 60% of the total output kept going into Northern pockets. Robert Rhett and John Calhoun certainly noticed it, and I think they told others.

Life is more complicated than it is in your simplistic world. Northerners wanted to preserve the union.

You offer a simplistic explanation for why the North felt they had to invade and kill people to "preserve a Union" that hated each other. I point out that it was more complicated than that, because there was a huge pile of money at stake depending on how everything went.

You want to ignore the money and offer me that simplistic explanation that they felt they had to fight and die to "preserve the Union."

Why? Why would anyone want to preserve a Union if they hated slavery and it was the slave states that were leaving?

They also wanted slavery not to spread.

Two things. Where did they get the idea that it would?

Why did they not want it to spread?

Well they got the idea that it would spread from the same Northern propaganda type outlets that are still feeding us lying sh*t today. They didn't want it to spread because they hated black people. *and* because they didn't want competition for their own wages. The first reason is immoral on the face of it, and the second reason is strictly self interest. Couple that with the lies they were told about it "spreading" (which it could not do to any meaningful extent), and the whole thing was wrong headed every way you look at it.

Nobody believes that their primary motivation was loving concern for the slaves.

Well this is absolutely correct. Their primary thinking of slaves was "hatred," not the fairy tale we've all been taught.

The slaveowners felt the survival of slavery was at risk and they wanted a government that was completely committed to preserving and protecting slavery.

Again, so the people trying to justify what was done to them keep telling us. Is it correct? I don't know, but I have come to doubt the truthfulness of any "everyone knows that" stories about history I have been taught.

It is likely that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

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