It cannot be denied that one of the significant motivating factors on the part of the capital owning establishment in the South was preserving the investment value of their slave property. They clearly and properly felt threatened by the slave/non-slave division and since this group put up much of the wealth in support of defense of the war, their participation was essential and was motivated in large part by the slave ownership capital position.
The language your post lifts from the secession documents and from the constitution of the confederation is addressed to the slave owning class to solicit their support for these reasons and these are, as you well recognize, political documents.
Had the war not ensued, would the north have abolished slavery in 1862? I think not. Did the south need to defend the war (or for that matter to secede) to avoid termination of slavery? I think not also. Had the south folded on the immediate political issue, there would have been no war and no abolition in the 1862 time frame either.
There were certainly a number of reasons why the south was prepared to fight at that instant in time; and as to part of the political coalition that funded and organized the south's defense, the implications of the long term threat to slavery were certainly an important factor.
However a careful look from a historical perspective leaves us with some other thoughts. For one thing, it is indisputable that slavery was a doomed institution by 1860, whether or not the war was fought. The defense offered above of the economics of the most important export is not well founded--the cotton gin would make slave labor uneconomic. It is also indisputable that the immediate direct result of the war was a substantial decline in the standard of living of the slaves. Not in any way intended as a defense of slavery, even for the short period between Emancipation and the probable end of slavery without the war.
Under the circumstances, the most significant modern consequence of the war is the decline in legal significance of the constitutional relationship among the states and the federal government. The compact of individual freedom that was the foundation of the War of Independence was effectively abrogated.
It is also beyond any argument that the significant motivating factor that led to initiation of armed conflict in the war was collection of tarriffs which were devastating to the economy of the southern states; benefited the aggressors directly; in exactly the kind of abuse of the collective power of the majority to exact benefits from the minority that the state power provisions of the constitution were designed to give the minority the power to defeat--by the threat to withdraw from the union in the ultimate extreme.
So when you sum up Lincoln and the defining event of his life, there is no doubt that he was a brillent man and one of the great lawyers of American history; probably the smartest president. But the war was a great waste in American history and the argument that the country is worse off today because it was fought has great merit.
I completely agree with your statement, in fact, all of your comment. I'm sure there were plenty of reasons why the Civil War started, and continued for four horrible years...But in the end, the conflict was over slavery. The abolitionists pressured Lincoln to make this issue the focus of the war. Until the Emancipation Proclamation, he resisted, and was conciliatory toward the south if it would lay down its rebellion (again, I think Lincoln's belief was that slavery would eventually collapse of necessity). But by the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, he had concluded that the war couldn't be ended, and wouldn't end well, without the end of slavery being a prime goal of the north, as well as union. History is written by the victors. And the change in the terms of the Civil War written by Lincoln in late 1862, ultimately made slavery (and union) the focal point of the war.
If anything, it was "doomed" by the moral force of the abolitionists, but the war certainly accelerated the process by making it clear to the Northern fence-sitters how destructive slavery was to the whole character of the white citizens of the slave states.
None of us can really say how long slavery would have continued had not the abolitionists and Unionists challenged the Confederates to fight for their "liberty" to keep others in chains. We do know that the Confederates were awfully stubborn re slavery and digging their heels in deeper and deeper as they came to identify the South with its "peculiar institution". No doubt they could have found alternative uses for slave labor if it ever became less valued in the cotton producing industry.
Under the circumstances, the most significant modern consequence of the war is the decline in legal significance of the constitutional relationship among the states and the federal government. The compact of individual freedom that was the foundation of the War of Independence was effectively abrogated.
You couldn't be more wrong on this. Individual freedom was greatly enhanced by the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments. Certainly the Confederates gave "states' rights" a bad reputation and that shifted public confidence from state government to the federal government, but the size and degree of intrusion of government into individual liberty in the decades following the Civil War was not substantially increased. That would not happen until the influence of Lincoln's best Supreme Court nominee (Stephen J. Fields) waned in the 1930's following his resignation from the Court.
It is also beyond any argument that the significant motivating factor that led to initiation of armed conflict in the war was collection of tarriffs [sic] which were devastating to the economy of the southern states
Beyond argument only among silly Confederate glorifiers. The Confederates expressed no concern whatsoever about tariffs in their declarations of secession, nor in making their decision to attack Fort Sumter. Tariffs were a pittance compared to the value they placed on slavery ($3 billion). Source. The entire 1860 federal spending was only $63.1 million (2% of GNP).Source. Because they were stealing the labor of negroes, Southerners enjoyed a 2-1 advantage over the North in per capita income (source), so even if the Southern citizens were paying twice the taxes of Northern citizens, the slaveholders would still be getting off cheaply by more than making up for it in stolen labor. And after all, it was their legalized theft of labor and their insistence on keeping it legal that necessitated the Civil War.
...the kind of abuse of the collective power of the majority to exact benefits from the minority that the state power provisions of the constitution were designed to give the minority the power to defeat...
Who was abusing whom? The Southern slaveholders were heinously abusing their collective power of the majority to exact benefits from a minority (i.e. the slaves). That was the kind of abuse that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were designed to prevent.
But the war was a great waste in American history and the argument that the country is worse off today because it was fought has great merit.
"Waste" compared to what? The South freeing the slaves between 1861 and 1865 without a war? Not very likely. How long are you assuming that slavery would last if Lincoln and the abolitionists had said "go ahead and take your slaves and start your own country", and what value are you placing on each of the 4.5 million people years of slavery? What would you be willing to pay to keep your family members from enduring even one year of slavery?