Well people have been repeating that assertion for 156 years, so modern people can be forgiven for accepting it as true. I keep pointing out that the Southern States already had slavery, and they had had it for the "four score and seven years" that the nation had existed, and as you yourself have pointed out, it was almost impossible for slavery to be abolished through a constitutional amendment.
So if the Southern states already had it, how was it a cause for them to leave? Were they going to get even more of it by leaving?
To put it differently, what were they going to get by leaving the Union that they didn't already have?
The motivation for the North was always preservation of the Union.
And why would they have a right to "preserve" a Union that was created by breaking with a previous Union? One that lasted far longer than "four score and seven years."
And a considerable percentage of Confederacy supporters deny the Southern actions were motivated by slavery - including most of the ones around here.
Again, did they not already have slavery? How does leaving the Union give them more slavery? Your claim makes no sense. Why would anyone leave a Union because of slavery when that Union allowed slavery? The five Union slave states didn't leave. Did the Union try to take away their slavery?
The accusation that they left the Union to keep something they already had is just nonsense. It is silly on the face of it.
Propaganda is not always correct.
The people who have been spreading it for 156 years, don't care that it's not correct. It justifies what their side did, and so far as they are concerned, that is all that matters. They get to believe in their own minds that their side was the "good guys", and so they would rather believe this than the truth.
This is Civil War 101 stuff.
The fire-eaters worked themselves up into a frenzy telling each other that Lincoln would take slavery away from them. That is why they up n skedaddled. Or so they told us.
Maybe it's because they are just quoting the men from 156 years ago that said it was about slavery?
I keep pointing out that the Southern States already had slavery, and they had had it for the "four score and seven years" that the nation had existed, and as you yourself have pointed out, it was almost impossible for slavery to be abolished through a constitutional amendment.
And yet 156 years ago the South thought it was necessary to rebel in order to protect it from perceived threats. Go figure.
To put it differently, what were they going to get by leaving the Union that they didn't already have?
Protect slavery to an extent that it wasn't protected under the U.S. Constitution. For example, ensuring that slavery could not be outlawed in any state. Also guaranteeing that slavery would expand to any territories that the Confederacy which was not a given in the U.S. with the Republicans plan to challenge the horrendous Scott decision.
And why would they have a right to "preserve" a Union that was created by breaking with a previous Union? One that lasted far longer than "four score and seven years."
It was in the Constitution. Article I, Section 8: "To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.."
The accusation that they left the Union to keep something they already had is just nonsense. It is silly on the face of it.
Tell that to the Southern leaders of the time:
"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." - Lawrence Keitt
"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865
"A stand must be made for African slavery or it is forever lost." [William Grimball to Elizabeth Grimball, Nov. 20, 1860, James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades:
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession
SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery. --Report from John Winston, Alabama's Secession Commissioner to Louisiana
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. -- Texas Declaration of the causes of secession
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention