Replies

FLT-bird on Southern paid tariffs: "The denial of it is a flat out lie.
Everybody including even the Northern newspapers at the time admitted it was true.
The lying denial is just laughable in fact."

One proof that you're wrong has been posted by DiogenesLamp, endlessly, to make his points.

Notice these numbers were for 1859 and reported to Congress in 1860, so they were public knowledge.

The graph clearly shows that 92% of all US tariff revenues came from Northern and Western ports.
And of the 8% which came from Southern ports, 83% of that came from New Orleans and Baltimore, both of which shipped much of their imports to Northerners in cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati.

Only 1% of all Federal tariff revenues came from the Southern cities between Baltimore and New Orleans (including Galveston).

That's the first proof, and it's indisputable, especially since DiogenesLamp has used those numbers so often to make his points.

So then it's claimed that, yes, Northern cities may have paid the tariffs, but those goods all then trans-shipped to the South, so in reality, Southerners paid the tariffs.

But they didn't, none of them did.
That's because Northern cities imported raw materials, especially wool, cotton, silk, iron, sugar, coffee, tea and wines.
What they "exported" to the South were finished products, especially goods made from wool, cotton, leather (i.e. shoes), silk, iron, wood & paper.
Northerners also shipped to Southerners smoked fish, which were not imported and nearly all the tea, which was imported.

So, how much of the raw material imported by Northern cities ended up in finished products they later "exported" to the South?

30% of woolen goods were "exported" to the South, plus
25% of cotton woven goods plus
15% of silk goods
35% of iron manufactured goods, but
0% of sugar, coffee & wine imports were then "exported" to the South.

The average then comes out around 15% of US raw material imports found their way into products then "exported" to the South.
And that corresponds to estimates of the South's GDP, which are around 15% of the US total annual GDP of $4.4 billion.

No, no!, it's claimed, we mustn't look at it that way.
The only thing we are supposed to consider is this: Southern exports were 75+% of total US exports, and they "paid for" all of US imports, and therefore, don't you see?, "the South" (meaning slave labor), "paid for" nearly all the Federal import tariff revenues.

And that is not 100% false, since cotton is clearly a Southern product and cotton alone accounted for around 50% of US total exports (including specie) in, say, 1860.
So, we might logically say that slave-labor "paid for" about 50% of US import tariffs.

But once we look past cotton, the list of "Southern Products" drops off very rapidly.

50% of US exports in, say, 1860, was raw cotton.
6% of US exports were tobacco products, and right away there's a problem, since tobacco was mostly grown not in the Confederate South, but rather in Union states and regions.
We know this because in 1861, when Confederate exports were deleted from US totals, tobacco exports fell only 14%.
So 86% of allegedly Southern tobacco actually came from Union states.
one half of 1% of US exports was turpentine, allegedly a Southern product, but exports fell only 38% in 1861, so the majority was produced in Union states.
Finally, the most curious "Southern Product" items of all, hops and clover seed.
These went from virtually no exports in 1860, but over $3 million total in 1861.
How can that happen if these are truly "Southern Products"?
The answer is, somebody has misclassified them.

So the true answer for Southern exports is roughly 50% of total US exports, and nearly all of that was cotton.

FLT-bird: "Everybody including even the Northern newspapers at the time admitted it was true."

Northern Democrat newspapers, of course, would parrot the lies of Southern Democrats.
We should expect that Republican papers stuck closer to the known facts.

FLT-bird: "Another case of a flat out lying denial of the obvious truth.
It was absolutely true that Northern States got the lion's share of federal expenditures despite paying only a tiny fraction of the taxes."

First, we've already established that Southerners paid virtually no import tariffs directly.
Indirectly, Southerners paid maybe 15% of total tariffs in the form of higher prices on tariff-protected manufactured goods they "imported" from the North.

Southern cotton did account for around 50% of total US exports, however, cotton itself was protected by a 19% tariff, so, when Southerners "imported" cotton products (i.e., clothing) from the North, some of the extra cost was for tariffs that protected their own products.

As for Federal spending, there are no numbers showing long term preferences for Northern versus Southern projects, none.
Here are the real facts for the period 1850 to 1860:

30% of all US voters in 1860, were Southerners.
53% of Federal spending on fortifications went to the South.
That is 76% more than the South's population justified.
45% of Internal Improvements (aka infrastructure) spending went to the South.
That is 50% more than the South's population justified.
41% of Federal spending on lighthouses went to the South.
That is 37% more than the South's population justified.
52% of Federal hospitalization spending went to the South.
That is 73% more than the South's population justified.
34% of Federal pensions were paid to Southerners.
That is 13% more than the South's population justified.
44% is the overall average of Federal spending, in the South between 1850 and 1860, which is 47% more than the South's population justified.
52% is the overall average of Federal spending in the South between 1789 and 1860, which is 73% more than the South's 1860 population justified.

There are no numbers which purport to show the South getting less than it's "fair share" of Federal spending.

FLT-bird "Southerners were a minority in Congress for years and years prior to Secession and the last few presidents - Buchanan and Lincoln - were Northerners."

Democrat President Buchanan is a typical example of what Southerners called "Dough-faced" Northerners, meaning Northerners eager to bend over and kiss Southern... ah... rings.
Buchanan was only a Northerner by about 10 miles -- meaning he was born 10 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line, and was happy to support Southerners on critical matters such as the 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scott decision.

The Democrat party was full of people like Pres. Buchanan, and so were the old Whigs before around 1852.
Indeed, it was the Old Republican, Virginia Senator John Randolph of Roanoke who first coined the term "Doughfaced Northerners" to describe such people.
Through Northern Doughfaces, Southerners controlled the Democrat party and through the party they ruled over Washington, DC.

"In 1820 seventeen doughfaces made the Missouri Compromise possible.
"In 1836 sixty northern congressmen voted with the South in the passage of a gag rule to prevent anti-slavery petitions from being formally received in the House of Representatives.
"In 1847 twenty-seven northerners joined with the South in opposing the Wilmot Proviso, and
"In 1850 thirty-five supported a stronger fugitive slave law.
"By 1854 the South had changed its position on the Missouri Compromise and fifty-eight northerners supported its repeal in the Kansas–Nebraska Act.[4]
"Richards has classified 320 congressmen in the period from 1820 to 1860 as doughfaces.
"The two U.S. Presidents preceding Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Pierce[6] and James Buchanan, were both commonly referred to as doughfaces.
"Stephen A. Douglas was severely criticized by Lincoln as the "worst doughface of them all",[7] even though he broke with his party over the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in 1857."

From the beginning of the Republic until secession, Southern Democrats were never completely powerless and only for brief periods suffered any reduction in their absolute powers over Washington, DC.

FLT-bird: "Henry Clay was a Kentuckian who was a nationalist and who championed the "American plan" of high protective tariffs and lots of corporate welfare.
This is what Lincoln believed in as well."

Henry Clay was a Virginia-born slaveholder who represented Kentucky in Congress.
Lincoln, like Jefferson Davis, was born in Kentucky while Clay was a young politician, a Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican.
This was at a time when Thomas Jefferson had flipped sides on the issue of Internal Improvements (aka infrastructure) and was supporting the most massive infrastructure project yet proposed, called the 1807 Gallatin Plan.
Like Presidents Jefferson and Madison, Clay continued to support Federal infrastructure spending, protective tariffs and even the National Bank.
When other Democratic-Republicans began opposing those, it lead to the party's split, making Kentuckian Clay a Whig opposed to Tennessean Andrew Jackson's Democrats.

Both Whig Clay and Democrat Jackson were Southern slaveholders.

FLT-bird "It wasn't a strictly North-South fight getting the Tariff of Abominations passed but once Southerners saw how damaging it was to their economy, they became staunchly opposed to the point that South Carolina nullified it touching off a national crisis."

And it was Southern Democrat President Jackson who put down the nascent South Carolina rebellion with not only stern words, but also by sending a war-fleet with soldiers to invade Charleston Harbor, should the need arrise.

FLT-bird "in reality, Southerners became more and more of a minority in Washington DC and by 1860 it was clear to everybody that they no longer had the strength to prevent passage of the Morrill Tariff which eventually TRIPLED tariff rates.
Southerners knew exactly how harmful this would be to them - and their response was secession."

Of course they had plenty of political power, even in 1860, until they first sabotaged their own cause by splitting the Democrat party and then committed political suicide by declaring secession.

The original Morrill proposal in 1859 was to return tariffs from the historically low 1857 rates to those of the 1846 Walker Tariff, which had been proposed and supported by Democrats at the time.
The original Morrill proposal increased overall rates from 16% to 26%.
Here is the comparison on major items.

TABLE COMPARING TARIFF RATES OF
1846 Walker, 1857 Democrats' & 1860 MORRILL:

Commodity	1846 Walker	1857 Democrats'	1860 Morrill
Woolens	30%	24%	37%
Brown Sugar	30%	24%	26%
Cotton	25	19	25
Iron mfg	30	24	29
Tobacco	40	30	25
Wines	40	30	40
Average tariffs:	33%	25%	30%

FLT-bird: "The Corwin Amendment would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever in the US Constitution.
Lincoln and the Northern dominated Congress also offered strengthened fugitive slave laws."

And so, like any good Democrat, you keep repeating your lies, even after you know the real truth of it.
Maybe if you just say it often enough, maybe, somehow you can magically make it true, right?

Once again, here's the truth: Corwin would provide no additional protection to slavery beyond what was already in the US Constitution.
Any proposals which did provide extra protections, such as the ones by Mississippi Democrat Senator Jefferson Davis, were rejected by Republicans, causing Mississippi to join South Carolina in declaring secession.

Corwin was supported 100% by Democrats and signed by Democrat President Buchanan.
Corwin was opposed by a majority of Republicans, and only transmitted to states by incoming Pres. Lincoln, without endorsing it.

Corwin could never offer Southerners the long list of explicit protections for slavery to be found in their new Confederate constitution.

FLT-bird on Corwin's intentions: "That is false.
It was definitely intended to persuade the original 7 seceding states to re-enter the union.
Anybody who reads Lincoln's first Inaugural Address will see it right away."

You've obviously not read it, or are so brainwashed you can't see the truth when it's staring you in the face.
Here's what Lincoln said:

"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."

He didn't endorse it, he said it made no change.

FLT-bird: "Lots of people saw slavery and its effects as pernicious.
Pretty much nobody was willing to shed their blood for its abolition.
Nor were the 94.33% of Southerners who did not own so much as a single slave willing to shed their blood for its preservation.
Slavey is not what people on each side were fighting over."

And yet, protecting slavery was the biggest reason, sometimes the only reason, secessionists gave in their "Reasons for Secession" documents.

Plus, your 94.33% statistic is off by an order of magnitude.
In fact, the numbers of families who owned slaves varied from:

1/3 to 1/2 of families in the Deep South (SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA & TX)
1/4 to 1/3 of families in the Upper South (VA, NC, TN & AR)
5% to 15% in the Border South (DE, MD, KY & MO)

Where you had 1/3 to 1/2 of families owning slaves, you also had another 1/3 or more of white families who worked for or joined socially with those slaveholding families.
So, the average Confederate soldier did not own slaves himself, but his family, uncles, cousins & neighbors did, and so the soldier understood how important slavery was to them economically and also socially.

FLT-bird: "Since the denial of it is the standard pro federal government propaganda and lies, it shows just how deep the propaganda goes that I was not exposed to the truth even all the way through college."

I'm certain you were taught the truth as best it was understood at the time.
But you didn't like the truth, somehow it made you feeeeeeel bad, and so you searched out a barrel of propaganda lies, and you've been drinking that Kool-Aid ever since.
And now you're addicted and can't get off it.

FLT-bird "Republicans lied every bit as much back then as Establishment Republicans aka RINOs lie today.
They are after all, part of the Establishment.
As we've all seen on issue after issue, there is simply no lie they will not stoop to in order to keep themselves in power and to keep the cash flowing into their pockets."

Here's the real truth of it: Republicans were not the establishment in 1860, Democrats were and had been almost exclusively since 1801.

Republicans today are about 50% corrupt, meaning it takes a constant struggle to keep Republicans on the straight and narrow path.
Democrats are 100% corrupt, meaning nothing can ever bring them to see the light of reason & virtue.
So, if you believe a word that comes from Democrats, be it in 1860 or today, it's only because you hate the truth and wish to delude yourself with lies.

FLT-bird "Once you swallow the Establishment's likes like BroJoeK, it is nearly impossible to get through to you just as it is with him."

So long as you post lies here, you have no chance of persuading anyone who doesn't buy your lies.
That's a fact.

One proof that you're wrong has been posted by DiogenesLamp, endlessly, to make his points. Notice these numbers were for 1859 and reported to Congress in 1860, so they were public knowledge. The graph clearly shows that 92% of all US tariff revenues came from Northern and Western ports. And of the 8% which came from Southern ports, 83% of that came from New Orleans and Baltimore, both of which shipped much of their imports to Northerners in cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati. Only 1% of all Federal tariff revenues came from the Southern cities between Baltimore and New Orleans (including Galveston). That's the first proof, and it's indisputable, especially since DiogenesLamp has used those numbers so often to make his points. So then it's claimed that, yes, Northern cities may have paid the tariffs, but those goods all then trans-shipped to the South, so in reality, Southerners paid the tariffs. But they didn't, none of them did. That's because Northern cities imported raw materials, especially wool, cotton, silk, iron, sugar, coffee, tea and wines. What they "exported" to the South were finished products, especially goods made from wool, cotton, leather (i.e. shoes), silk, iron, wood & paper. Northerners also shipped to Southerners smoked fish, which were not imported and nearly all the tea, which was imported. So, how much of the raw material imported by Northern cities ended up in finished products they later "exported" to the South? 1. 30% of woolen goods were "exported" to the South, plus 2. 25% of cotton woven goods plus 3. 15% of silk goods 4. 35% of iron manufactured goods, but 5. 0% of sugar, coffee & wine imports were then "exported" to the South. The average then comes out around 15% of US raw material imports found their way into products then "exported" to the South.

Except that is not proof. That merely shows WHERE the tariff was paid, not WHO paid it. We've had this discussion at least a dozen times before and I have explained that to you at least a dozen times before. You just talk for the sake of talking don't you?

And that corresponds to estimates of the South's GDP, which are around 15% of the US total annual GDP of $4.4 billion.

Estimates by who? Where are these estimates?

No, no!, it's claimed, we mustn't look at it that way. The only thing we are supposed to consider is this: Southern exports were 75+% of total US exports, and they "paid for" all of US imports, and therefore, don't you see?, "the South" (meaning slave labor), "paid for" nearly all the Federal import tariff revenues.

The standard pack of lies I see. Nobody said the South paid for "all" of US imports - just about 75% of them. The South does not mean exclusively slave labor of course. Most Southerners were White. Most worked in jobs requiring manual labor. Ergo, the majority of the South's labor was White.

And that is not 100% false, since cotton is clearly a Southern product and cotton alone accounted for around 50% of US total exports (including specie) in, say, 1860. So, we might logically say that slave-labor "paid for" about 50% of US import tariffs.

We might...if we were being dishonest. Not all cotton was grown and harvested with slave labor. That was a laughably wrong assumption from the start.

But once we look past cotton, the list of "Southern Products" drops off very rapidly. 1. 50% of US exports in, say, 1860, was raw cotton. 2. 6% of US exports were tobacco products, and right away there's a problem, since tobacco was mostly grown not in the Confederate South, but rather in Union states and regions.

False. Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, etc were the largest producers of Tobacco.

We know this because in 1861, when Confederate exports were deleted from US totals, tobacco exports fell only 14%. So 86% of allegedly Southern tobacco actually came from Union states.

1. I'd need to see the source for the statistics you are citing. I would also need to see that they aren't including goods exported from the Southern states. The blockade wasn't very effective in 1861.

3. one half of 1% of US exports was turpentine, allegedly a Southern product, but exports fell only 38% in 1861, so the majority was produced in Union states. 4. Finally, the most curious "Southern Product" items of all, hops and clover seed. These went from virtually no exports in 1860, but over $3 million total in 1861. How can that happen if these are truly "Southern Products"? The answer is, somebody has misclassified them. So the true answer for Southern exports is roughly 50% of total US exports, and nearly all of that was cotton.

Odd that you came to the "true answer" and all those Northern newspapers at the time got it so drastically wrong. You'd think the people at the time would understand the economics better than some guy over 160 years later......

Northern Democrat newspapers, of course, would parrot the lies of Southern Democrats. We should expect that Republican papers stuck closer to the known facts.

Several of the newspapers I cited were in fact Republican. The editorials I cited were from Northern papers calling for war because they recognized the loss of their cash cows - ie the Southern states, would be economically devastating to the Northern states. That doesn't seem to be a position Democrats at the time would champion.

First, we've already established that Southerners paid virtually no import tariffs directly.

First, we've already established that they did and that your denials are pure hogwash.

Indirectly, Southerners paid maybe 15% of total tariffs in the form of higher prices on tariff-protected manufactured goods they "imported" from the North.

yet more pure hogwash. The imported goods were hit with at first double the 15% rate they had been subject to before and eventually under the Morrill Tariff they were subject to a staggering 50% tariff. Needless to say, Northern manufacturers jacked up their prices only a tiny bit less in order to maximize profits. So the cost of manufactured goods rose dramatically.

Clothing was one of the items subject to the dramatic increase in prices due to the tariff. It did not "protect" Southern products at all. In fact, Southerners saw their sales of cotton and other goods decrease during the Tariff of Abominations as Britain and France no longer had as much money to buy their products due to the tariff. The same no doubt was taking place in the 1860s.

As for Federal spending, there are no numbers showing long term preferences for Northern versus Southern projects, none.

Yet another falsehood from you.

Here are the real facts for the period 1850 to 1860: 1. 30% of all US voters in 1860, were Southerners. 2. 53% of Federal spending on fortifications went to the South. That is 76% more than the South's population justified. 3. 45% of Internal Improvements (aka infrastructure) spending went to the South. That is 50% more than the South's population justified. 4. 41% of Federal spending on lighthouses went to the South. That is 37% more than the South's population justified. 5. 52% of Federal hospitalization spending went to the South. That is 73% more than the South's population justified. 6. 34% of Federal pensions were paid to Southerners. That is 13% more than the South's population justified. 7. 44% is the overall average of Federal spending, in the South between 1850 and 1860, which is 47% more than the South's population justified. 8. 52% is the overall average of Federal spending in the South between 1789 and 1860, which is 73% more than the South's 1860 population justified. There are no numbers which purport to show the South getting less than it's "fair share" of Federal spending.

How odd that your numbers say the exact opposite of what Northern Newspapers were saying...and what Southern political leaders were saying...and what Southern commentators had been saying...and what tax expert Charles Adams said. How convenient your numbers are for your argument. Almost as if they were complete and utter BS.

Irrelevant, because Southerners exercised their political powers through control over the Democrat party, and Democrats ruled over Washington, DC, almost continuously from 1801 until secession in 1861. Democrat President Buchanan is a typical example of what Southerners called "Dough-faced" Northerners, meaning Northerners eager to bend over and kiss Southern... ah... rings. Buchanan was only a Northerner by about 10 miles -- meaning he was born 10 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line, and was happy to support Southerners on critical matters such as the 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scott decision. The Democrat party was full of people like Pres. Buchanan, and so were the old Whigs before around 1852. Indeed, it was the Old Republican, Virginia Senator John Randolph of Roanoke who first coined the term "Doughfaced Northerners" to describe such people. Through Northern Doughfaces, Southerners controlled the Democrat party and through the party they ruled over Washington, DC. 1. "In 1820 seventeen doughfaces made the Missouri Compromise possible. 2. "In 1836 sixty northern congressmen voted with the South in the passage of a gag rule to prevent anti-slavery petitions from being formally received in the House of Representatives. 3. "In 1847 twenty-seven northerners joined with the South in opposing the Wilmot Proviso, and 4. "In 1850 thirty-five supported a stronger fugitive slave law. 5. "By 1854 the South had changed its position on the Missouri Compromise and fifty-eight northerners supported its repeal in the Kansas–Nebraska Act.[4] 6. "Richards has classified 320 congressmen in the period from 1820 to 1860 as doughfaces. 7. "The two U.S. Presidents preceding Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Pierce[6] and James Buchanan, were both commonly referred to as doughfaces. 8. "Stephen A. Douglas was severely criticized by Lincoln as the "worst doughface of them all",[7] even though he broke with his party over the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in 1857." From the beginning of the Republic until secession, Southern Democrats were never completely powerless and only for brief periods suffered any reduction in their absolute powers over Washington, DC.

Ah so even when a political leader was from the North and was elected by Northern voters, if he in any way cooperated or compromised with Southerners he was of course a "doughface" and was "controlled" by Southerners. ROTF! You actually seem to believe this crap.

Henry Clay was a Virginia-born slaveholder who represented Kentucky in Congress. Lincoln, like Jefferson Davis, was born in Kentucky while Clay was a young politician, a Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican. When other Democratic-Republicans began opposing those, it lead to the party's split, making Kentuckian Clay a Whig opposed to Tennessean Andrew Jackson's Democrats. Both Whig Clay and Democrat Jackson were Southern slaveholders.

Where someone is born is pretty much meaningless. Hell, Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia. Its where a politician was raised and where he worked and where he was elected that matters. Clay was from a border state. Davis was a Southerner. Lincoln was a Northerner.

And yet, and yet... the 1828 Tariff of Abominations' greatest defender was a Democrat Southern Slaveholder named Andrew Jackson. So, it was not strictly North vs. South because there were many Southerners who fully understood the value of encouraging US producers. And it was Southern Democrat President Jackson who put down the nascent South Carolina rebellion with not only stern words, but also by sending a war-fleet with soldiers to invade Charleston Harbor, should the need arrise.

and yet and yet, Southerners as a whole were staunchly opposed to the Tariff of Abominations once they saw how destructive it was to their economy. Also, the Nullification Crisis was ended by a compromise. The tariff was done away with and tariff rates were lowered dramatically. South Carolina got what it wanted.

Of course they had plenty of political power, even in 1860, until they first sabotaged their own cause by splitting the Democrat party and then committed political suicide by declaring secession.

Of course they did not have the political power to stop the passage of the Morrill Tariff which they knew from experience was going to devastate their economy.

The original Morrill proposal in 1859 was to return tariffs from the historically low 1857 rates to those of the 1846 Walker Tariff, which had been proposed and supported by Democrats at the time. The original Morrill proposal increased overall rates from 16% to 26%.

the original Morrill tariff DOUBLED tariff rates. It went on to more than TRIPLE tariff rates eventually.

And so, like any good Democrat, you keep repeating your lies, even after you know the real truth of it. Maybe if you just say it often enough, maybe, somehow you can magically make it true, right? Once again, here's the truth: Corwin would provide no additional protection to slavery beyond what was already in the US Constitution. Any proposals which did provide extra protections, such as the ones by Mississippi Democrat Senator Jefferson Davis, were rejected by Republicans, causing Mississippi to join South Carolina in declaring secession. Corwin was supported 100% by Democrats and signed by Democrat President Buchanan. Corwin was opposed by a majority of Republicans, and only transmitted to states by incoming Pres. Lincoln, without endorsing it.

And you just repeat your endless lies and BS. Lincoln orchestrated passage of the Corwin Amendment. REPUBLICAN Senator Thomas Corwin wrote it. REPUBLICAN William Seward supported it. Lots of other REPUBLICANS supported it too. Regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats, the Corwin Amendment passed the Northern dominated Congress by the necessary 2/3rds supermajority AFTER the Southern delegation had withdrawn. Lincoln endorsed it in his all important first inaugural address. That's the truth.

Corwin could never offer Southerners the long list of explicit protections for slavery to be found in their new Confederate constitution.

Pure lie on your part as usual. The protections of slavery in the Confederate Constitution were not more than those that existed in the US at the time with the sole provision that the Confederate government itself could not outlaw slavery.....ie the same thing the Corwin Amendment would have done in the US Constitution.

You've obviously not read it, or are so brainwashed you can't see the truth when it's staring you in the face.

You've obviously not read it or you are lying. I've come to the conclusion that its the latter.

Here's what Lincoln said: "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." He didn't endorse it, he said it made no change.

He said it passed and he had no objections. Of course in reality ole Abe was lying. He had not only seen it, he had orchestrated it.

And yet, protecting slavery was the biggest reason, sometimes the only reason, secessionists gave in their "Reasons for Secession" documents.

And yet of the 4 states that issued declarations of causes only one listed exclusively that even though none of the other grievances listed were unconstitutional while the Northern states' violation of the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution actually was unconstitutional.

Plus, your 94.33% statistic is off by an order of magnitude.

No its not. Its directly from the 1860 US Census.

In fact, the numbers of families who owned slaves varied from: 1. 1/3 to 1/2 of families in the Deep South (SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA & TX) 2. 1/4 to 1/3 of families in the Upper South (VA, NC, TN & AR) 3. 5% to 15% in the Border South (DE, MD, KY & MO) Where you had 1/3 to 1/2 of families owning slaves, you also had another 1/3 or more of white families who worked for or joined socially with those slaveholding families.

Your estimates are WAY too high and are based on the faulty assumption that there could only be one slave owner per family. We know numerous examples of that not being true.

So, the average Confederate soldier did not own slaves himself, but his family, uncles, cousins & neighbors did, and so the soldier understood how important slavery was to them economically and also socially.

Except they didn't. Slave ownership was rare and of those who did own slaves, over half of them owned 5 or less. The big slave owners were a tiny minority.

I'm certain you were taught the truth as best it was understood at the time. But you didn't like the truth, somehow it made you feeeeeeel bad, and so you searched out a barrel of propaganda lies, and you've been drinking that Kool-Aid ever since. And now you're addicted and can't get off it.

No, I was taught the standard lies, propaganda and BS you constantly spew. I was absolutely shocked when I read more for myself and discovered the truth. It was an eye opening experience that made me start to question a lot of other things....ie the media, academia, the government, etc

Here's the real truth of it: Republicans were not the establishment in 1860, Democrats were and had been almost exclusively since 1801.

Laughable BS to say Republicans weren't part of the Establishment back then. Lincoln was the chief counsel and lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad - then the largest corporation on earth. If that's not Establishment, nothing is.

Republicans today are about 50% corrupt, meaning it takes a constant struggle to keep Republicans on the straight and narrow path. Democrats are 100% corrupt, meaning nothing can ever bring them to see the light of reason & virtue. So, if you believe a word that comes from Democrats, be it in 1860 or today, it's only because you hate the truth and wish to delude yourself with lies.

You keep making this idiotic assumption that the political parties never change. They do. They change drastically over time and the coalitions that drive the bus change. We've seen that in our own lifetimes. It has happened several times before. The Democrats of the JFK era were not nearly as corrupt as they are now. Even now there are some like RFK Jr who are not corrupt.

So long as you post lies here, you have no chance of persuading anyone who doesn't buy your lies. That's a fact.

That's exactly what I say about you.