Fire Eaters in seven Deep South cotton states declared secession.
But even in those seven states large regions were Unionist majorities:
Uncle Sham: "They didn’t need the North and decided that their futures were for THEM to determine."
Fire Eaters declared secession "at pleasure" over nothing more than constitutionally elected Republican majorities and President.
Uncle Sham: "The North refused to let them go."
False.
Union officials took no actions to stop secession or the new Confederacy.
The Northern public only demanded action in response to dozens of Confederate seizures of Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc..
When those seizures took the form of Confederate military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, President Lincoln responded by calling up 75,000 troops to suppress rebellion, in accordance with the 1792 Insurrection Act.
So our Lost Causers make a huge deal over Lincoln's alleged "provocation" in sending a "war fleet" to Charleston, SC.
But the reality is that Jefferson Davis intended to take both Forts Sumter & Pickens, by force if necessary, long before any "war fleet" showed up.
Indeed, Davis well understood that some act of war was necessary to flip Virginia & other Upper South states from Union to Confederacy.
So Lincoln's alleged "provocation" was irrelevant to Davis' plans to eliminate Union forces in the Confederacy.
Uncle Sham: "The North, by provocation, saw fit to end the lives of 750,000 young men in the prime of their lives to FORCE itself upon the South."
The United States responded to the Confederate Declaration of War, May 6, 1861, and Confederate military threats to Union states & territories including Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma & New Mexico\Arizona among others.
In the Civil War's first 12 months more battles were fought and more Confederate soldiers were killed in the Union than the Confederacy.
Uncle Sham: "This is equivalent to rape and enforces the truth that the North had been raping the South financially for quite a while before the war.
Having the good ole South around must have been a really good thing for the North and a bad habit that it couldn’t give up."
Well, first, throughout the South were huge regions of white majority Unionists and anti-slavery:
Second, far from "rape" you're really talking about consensual political, economic & social relations between Southern & Northern Democrats.
As to which side was the "male", well, until 1861 Southerners were clearly in charge of their "Doughfaced" Northern allies.
And Northern Democrats generally supported Deep South secession until Fire Eaters turned on them, renouncing their debts.
Then most Democrats came to join Republicans in believing our Union was worth fighting for & preserving.
Third there was simply no way to eliminate the Confederate military threat to the United States without defeating it unconditionally.