So....they were really motivated by the desire to spread slavery and they seceded so that they could spread slavery...even though when they seceded they made utterly no claim to the territory of the US and left only with their own sovereign territory within their own state borders."
DiogenesLamp: "Yes, it's circular reasoning bullsh*t.
They would immediately see what was wrong with what they are claiming if they weren't so intent on trying to believe it."
The spread of slavery in US territories was a core issue in the 1860 presidential election.
Lincoln opposed it, other candidates supported it to one degree or another.
It was also a reason for secession, mentioned by Robert Rhett in his Address to Slaveholding States:
- "If it is right to preclude or abolish Slavery in a territory, why should it be allowed to remain in the States?"
- "They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic...
...Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South."
- "The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean,"
As for Confederate claims on Western territories, sure, nothing said about that on Day One, but in early 1861 Confederates began military operations aimed at both Oklahoma and New Mexico.