You are taking me a bit out of context here. My point when I say "nobody gave a sh*t about slaves" refers to the people who claimed to give a sh*t about them. I assumed most people understood that the slaveholders didn't give a sh*t about slave freedom, it was the Northern states that made this claim.
Nobody in positions of power in the North gave a sh*t about the slaves until it became politically advantageous and militarily useful for them to pretend they were doing some great and noble thing, which they had previously had no intention of doing.
I hope that clears things up for you.
so I looked at various statistics. 4 out of 11 states is 36%, or over a third.
In a Democratic Republic, it takes over 50% to have any significance. If you don't have 50% support for something, you have a 100% loss on any vote.
Again, it is your side that is desperate to have the minority speak for the majority, and not because you are concerned about truth. You want this minority of states to speak for the rest, because it fits the narrative you wish to believe.
I find it very interesting that you consider the words of one newspaper editor to be gospel, but discount the written word of 4 state legislatures.
The Newspapers were on the other side. The politicians of course were trying to gain power and didn't want people to see beyond what they wished them to believe.
Apart from that, what the Newspapers said better fits with the economic reality of the situation. Southern independence was clearly a serious economic threat to established money powers in the North.
Another point that’s been bothering me is your insistence that the southern legislatures were using slavery as blather to cover up their real intent. Why?
You are going to move 230 million dollars per year out of the pockets of the most powerful people in America. Do you think bringing their attention to this fact is helpful or unhelpful to your efforts to get that money?
Yes, I would tell them it was about broiled snake bellies in China before I would give a hint I was going to screw them over financially.
Of course, anyone thinking that the top businessmen in America wouldn't notice a serious threat to their pocket book is just a fool. Perhaps they thought if the public didn't notice, they could get away with it, but the business people were absolutely going to notice what was going to happen to their money.
So, now we’re arguing about the context of your statement that “nobody gave a shi*t about slavery”. When I proved, by citing multiple official texts, that the south DID “give a sh*t about slavery”, you claimed that you meant to say nobody in the north gave a sh*t about slavery. The only answer I can give to that is “No sh*t, Sherlock”. To reiterate, for the nth time, the North went to war the preserve the Union. They did not go to war regarding slavery in any way. Yet, you persist in pointing out this obvious fact (Corwin Amendment!, Boston newspaper editorial! Some guy overheard in a bar in Montpelier!) as if this proves the Southern secession (and the war) was not about slavery. The reason the southern states seceded (maintain slavery in the existing states, expand slavery into the territories, and enforce the fugitive slave act) were their reasons, and the opinion of anybody in the North was immaterial to those reasons – which they stated in the Articles of Secession, in case you’ve forgotten.
It’s somewhat amusing how you go from arguing that the 4 states who listed slavery as their reason for seceding were; a) a teeny-tiny minority to arguing that “in a Democratic Republic, it takes over 50% to have any significance.”. So, my question to you, it when was a vote taken by the Confederacy on whether or not Slavery was the reason for secession? I don’t remember any such vote being taken. I mean, did all the states get together in a Reasons for Secession Convention and vote on the reasons? Did they say, only 4 of you voted for slavery being the reason. Since that’s less than 50% you’re wrong and that’s not your reason? All levity aside, those 4 states did explicitly state that protection of slavery (in all its parts) was the reason for their secession, and they obviously considered it important. Are we to ignore them because they were less than 50%? By that logic (using that word loosely), the majority of the states not voting for secession would be free to totally ignore the position of those states voting for secession, since they were less than 50% of the total of states.
When I asked why the South felt the need to hide their “real” reasons for seceding behind the blather of slavery, you responded as follows: “You are going to move 230 million dollars per year out of the pockets of the most powerful people in America. Do you think bringing their attention to this fact is helpful or unhelpful to your efforts to get that money?” Then, you followed by stating: “Of course, anyone thinking that the top businessmen in America wouldn’t notice a serious threat to their pocket book is just a fool.”. This whole line of logic (again, using the term extremely loosely) confuses me. You’re saying that the Articles of Secession were a cynical attempt to hide what was basically an attempt to steal (I’m sorry. You said “screw them over financially”) the United States out of $230 Million. Then you followed up by saying that of course it wasn’t fooling anybody. Do you have such a poor opinion of the Southerners who seceded? You’re always comparing them to the Patriots of 1776. We went a long way from “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor” to “We’re going to lie about how we’re screwing them out of money, but we’re going to do it so incompetently that everyone will see through it.” And, I notice that you have never answered the question of why they thought that using slavery as an excuse would play better with Western Europe than tariffs? I personally have a better opinion of the honesty and honor of the secessionists