Even DoodleDawg knows that possibility was not even remotely true.
I've done the math. If the 11 states that became the Confederacy all voted to keep slavery, it would take 44 states in the Union for them to be outvoted by the remainder. (Wasn't possible till 1896) If the Union slave states also voted against abolishing slavery, it would have taken a Union with 60 states to outvote the slave states.
On top of that, Lincoln said repeatedly that he would not attempt to do anything about slavery, and that he actually didn't have the power to do anything about it even if he wanted to.
So it sounds like "Civil War 101" is not at all compatible with the demonstrable facts of that time period.
Or so they told us.
I have read many opinions to the effect that this was indeed what they said, but it was intended as subterfuge for their real reasons, which was economic independence.
At least this is what one Northern newspaper believed.
The Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861:
"the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports..."
It exactly comports with the facts of Civil War 101 (which is, obviously, why they call it Civil War 101). It doesn’t come as a surprise that DoodleDawg gets it as DoodleDawg is a rational person. I’m shocked that you get it though.
I’m not shocked that it escaped the fire-eaters - but I still reserve some room for disappointment. They should have seen that Lincoln would stay true to his word. They should have bucked up and exhausted every avenue and every recourse before resorting to insurrection and war.
But they didn’t. They chose the easy way out.
Painfully easy...
A government that wasn't 100% committed to slavery could do things to weaken the institution. For one thing, it could keep slavery out of the territories, taking the side of anti-slavery forces. It could start admitting new free states.
It could also repeal or stop enforcing fugitive slave laws. It could abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It could seat judges who would overturn Dred Scott. Eventually, it could vote a system of voluntary compensated emancipation that might begin to unravel the slave system.
But saying that the government couldn't abolish slavery doesn't refute the fact that Southerners feared that Lincoln's election meant the eventual end of slavery. It didn't have to be rational. It was emotional. And that was what many Southerners felt at the time. Saying that it wasn't likely to happen doesn't change how people felt at a very anxious and fearful time.
You are just applying your own a priori assumptions to history and making conclusions on that basis. You have to look up how people actually thought at the time. Try reading DeBow's Review. Here's an article I picked out more or less at random from an 1860 issue: "The Issues of 1860." The article just gets crazier and crazier as you go along. When you think you've seen it all, it dives deeper into nonsense and madness. But that was how a lot of people thought at the time.
A South Carolina state legislature drew on this article in his speech: "THE DOOM OF SLAVERY IN THE UNION: ITS SAFETY OUT OF IT. There was a kind of domino theory at work here. If Kansas goes, so does Missouri, so does the Indian Territory, and so eventually do Arkansas and Texas. That may be irrational, but it's exactly how many secessionists thought. In their own words. It's not some idea of my own that I've imposed on them the way that you like to do.
DiogenesLamp: "Even DoodleDawg knows that possibility was not even remotely true."
In fact, DiogenesLamp provides no evidence to refute rockrr's statement and in his next post DiogenesLamp admits it's true, sort of...
rockrr: "Or so they told us."
DiogenesLamp: "I have read many opinions to the effect that this was indeed what they said, but it was intended as subterfuge for their real reasons, which was economic independence."
Sure, issues in global finance-logistics doubtless did motivate a few elite secessionists, but the secession sale-closer for the vast majority of Southerners was the alleged threat to slavery represented by "Ape" Lincoln and his "Black Republicans."
That's not just what they said, it's also what they believed.
DiogenesLamp: "At least this is what one Northern newspaper believed."
The Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861:
Sure, some Northeastern Democrats would be concerned about such matters.
Normal Republican voters, not so much.
Republicans were more concerned about the Union, Constitution and slavery.