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"Whatever it was, it must have been totally unspeakable, because none of them ever mentioned being oppressed"

Don't read very much, do you.

December 18, 1860, Francis Wilkinson Pickens was inaugurated Governor of South Carolina.

Governor Pickens addressed the House as follows:

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: --

You have called me to preside as Chief Magistrate of South Carolina at a critical juncture in our public affairs. .

For seventy-three years this State has been connected by a Federal compact with co-states under a bond of Union, for great national objects common to all. In recent years there has been a powerful party organized upon principles of ambition and fanaticism, whose undisguised purpose is to divest the Federal Government from external, and turn its power upon the internal interests and domestic institutions of these States.

They have thus combined a party exclusively in the Northern States, whose avowed objects, not only endanger the peace, but the very existence of near one-half the States of this Confederacy. And in the recent election for President and Vice-President of these States, they have carried the election upon principles that make it no longer safe for us to rely upon the powers of the Federal Government or the guarantees of the Federal compact.

This is the great overt act of the people of in the Northern States at the ballot box, in the exercise of their sovereign power at the polls, from which there is no higher appeal recognized under our system of government in its ordinary and habitual operations. They thus propose to inaugurate a Chief Magistrate at the head of the Army and Navy with vast powers, not to preside over the common interests and destinies of all the States alike, but upon issues of malignant hostility and uncompromising war to be urged upon the rights, the interests and the peace of half the States of this Union.

In the Southern States there are two entirely distinct and separate races, and one has been held in subjection to the other by peaceful inheritance from worthy and patriotic ancestors, and all who know the races, well know that it is the only form of government that can preserve both and administer the blessings of civilization with order and in harmony.

Any thing tending to change or weaken this government and the subordination between the races not only endangers the peace, but the very existence of our society itself.

We have for years warned the Northern people of the dangers they were producing by their wanton and lawless course. We have often appealed to our sister States of the South to act with us in concert upon some firm and moderate system by which we might be able to save the Federal Constitution, and yet feel safe under the general compact of union; but we could obtain no fair hearing from the North, nor could we see any concerted plan, proposed by any of our co-States of the South, calculated to make us feel safe and secure.

Sorry, Pea, but I don't see one bit of oppression there --- either tollerable or intollerable. If I missed it, please highlight it for me. Other than vague generalities, it is interesting that the only specific thing he mentioned was that he was upset as hell and back that all Northern people weren't as wild about slavery as he was. Poor boy. Those damn yankees probably didn't like grits much either.

"In the Southern States there are two entirely distinct and separate races, and one has been held in subjection to the other by peaceful inheritance from worthy and patriotic ancestors, and all who know the races, well know that it is the only form of government that can preserve both and administer the blessings of civilization with order and in harmony.

And I thought you were of the school that claims slavery had nothing to do with the war.