[lentulusgracchus]

[Me]You are engaging in excessive reduction of the Northern beef with the South to a single issue. The Northern pols like Lincoln did that in their bid to unify the North politically and turn it into a bulldozer -- but the objective was the bulldozing of the South as a whole, not just slavery.

[You] One man's opinion, until you show otherwise?

You haven't shown yet that "it was all about slavery" since you keep bringing in the docs most favorable to your own thesis, but can't close the deal. And now you demand I document -- as if anyone needed to -- the vast corpus of Northern political propaganda against the South, intended to unify Northern political sentiment against the South.

If the Mississippians refer to slavery, that's a good quote, right? But if they refer just as repeatedly in the same document to Northern hostility and animus, then those references are obviously over-the-top, bogus, and discountable, and I have to "prove" my case by writing a new book. Which you will then sneer at, ignore, and tell me I've been "refuted".

Sorry, Charlie. You must think I'm stupid.

[Non-Sequitur]

You haven't shown yet that "it was all about slavery" since you keep bringing in the docs most favorable to your own thesis, but can't close the deal. And now you demand I document -- as if anyone needed to -- the vast corpus of Northern political propaganda against the South, intended to unify Northern political sentiment against the South.

I've provided quite a few quotes from the leaders of the time that it was, and you've provided only your opinion on Lincoln. Surely you can do better than that?

But if they refer just as repeatedly in the same document to Northern hostility and animus, then those references are obviously over-the-top, bogus, and discountable, and I have to "prove" my case by writing a new book. Which you will then sneer at, ignore, and tell me I've been "refuted".

Not when all that alleged "hostility and animus" are directed at the institution of slavery.

Sorry, Charlie. You must think I'm stupid.

Not yet but I am getting close.