We fought in the Second World War because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That doesn’t mean that the war didn’t have deeper causes or a deeper meaning or that we weren’t fighting for and against some larger things.
When a quarter or a third or half the population of some states was enslaved and no one was enslaved in other states and controversy had raged over slavery for years, it’s foolish to argue that slavery wasn’t significant and wasn’t an issue. It’s also not at all surprising that Jefferson Davis and his associates would minimize the importance of slavery when they were seeking diplomatic recognition and military assistance from countries that had already abolished slavery on their own territory. It was not at all surprising that propagandists would use tariff conflicts that had been peacefully resolved over the years in an attempt to hide the fundamental conflict over slavery and its expansion, which could not be so easily dismissed.
Missing too in some of the arguments is that when some state group decides to leave the country there are often dissenters on their territory, people who don’t want to go. There is also the possibility of fraud, corruption, and coercion. The secessionists aren’t some libertarian, anti-government movement. They are aspiring to create a government of their own. They will want to secure for their new country as much territory and resources as they can, even if this means oppressing dissenters and minorities and subverting or invading neighboring states and regions.
For this reason, unilateral secession is always a fraught situation. Countries confronted with it have a legitimate interest in protecting loyal citizens and their national resources. No president and no country worthy of its name would simply give the secessionists everything they wanted, and the new Confederate government was certainly not above taking what it wanted by force. What happened in the 1860s was a tragedy, but it was not a tragedy that can be laid wholly at the door of Abraham Lincoln or the North.
I also would take issue with both the article writer and some of the commenters: “South” and “North” are too big and too abstract categories. Praise and blame belong to individuals and the groups they belonged to. We don’t need to be forever arguing in terms that are so imprecise and only serve to open old wounds.
The most succinct and persuasive argument I've heard against the Declaration of Independence and General Washington's decision to fight the British Empire.
But not totally persuasive.
I know of few who say slavery wasn't AN issue or even that it wasn't an IMPORTANT issue - just that it was not THE issue. It was not the sine qua non for secession or the war.
It was not at all surprising that propagandists would use tariff conflicts that had been peacefully resolved over the years in an attempt to hide the fundamental conflict over slavery and its expansion, which could not be so easily dismissed.
Actually it is the propagandists who try to claim that the tariff conflicts had been resolved. They had not. The Morrill Tariff which had already passed the House and which was sure to pass the Senate by flipping a Senator or two with good old fashioned log rolling was THE central plank of the Republican party platform in 1860. Everyone knew it was going to pass. The Morrill Tariff would go on to triple tariff rates. Here is a quote from Georgia Senator Robert Toombs who wrote much of Georgia's Declaration of Causes:
On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the "infamous Morrill bill." The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which "the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists." Toombs described this coalition as "the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South." Anti-tariff sentiments also appeared in Georgia's Secession Declaration of January 29, 1861:
I could post editorials about the centrality of the Tariff issue from newspapers North, South and Foreign as well as a slew of quotes from other leading political figures on the importance of the Tariff but suffice it to say, that any claim that this issue had been resolved are entirely fictitious. This was THE central issue.
Missing too in some of the arguments is that when some state group decides to leave the country there are often dissenters on their territory, people who don’t want to go. There is also the possibility of fraud, corruption, and coercion. The secessionists aren’t some libertarian, anti-government movement. They are aspiring to create a government of their own. They will want to secure for their new country as much territory and resources as they can, even if this means oppressing dissenters and minorities and subverting or invading neighboring states and regions.
For this reason, unilateral secession is always a fraught situation. Countries confronted with it have a legitimate interest in protecting loyal citizens and their national resources. No president and no country worthy of its name would simply give the secessionists everything they wanted, and the new Confederate government was certainly not above taking what it wanted by force.
The Southern states seceded under either democratic plebiscites in those states or via democratic election of representatives to conventions - the very means by which they had joined the US in the first place. I know if no infringements on the rights of citizens in those states who did not wish to secede prior to the outbreak of war.
As to taking things...the only things the Southern states took were federal installations on their own sovereign territory - forts, post offices, etc. Any sovereign country is obviously not going to allow a foreign country to hold forts on its territory - and at any rate can claim such installations under its eminent domain power. The only thing left to negotiate are the terms of secession, the settlement of debts and assets, etc. The Southern states sent representatives to Washington DC to negotiate those terms in good faith.
Also, the seceding states did not claim any of the western territories of the US. They were perfectly willing to give up any notion of spreading slavery westward - which they could have made claim to some of having provided the troops and the money to acquire those territories in the first place. They simply wished to leave.
What happened in the 1860s was a tragedy, but it was not a tragedy that can be laid wholly at the door of Abraham Lincoln or the North.
I would agree that it cannot be laid entirely at the door of Lincoln and the North, but it can be laid mostly at their door. Had they been less economically exploitative, had they been willing to offer a reasonable compensated emancipation scheme (as other Western countries had done and indeed as Northern states had done for their citizens when they abolished slavery), had they not been so determined to impose their will on others instead of negotiating with them in good faith, it probably could have been avoided.
But let's remember who was driving that train - New England. These are the same bossy, judgmental, intolerant, know-it-all authoritarians who think they have some kind of divine mission to impose wokeness on the whole country today and who think it their place to go around the world spreading "democracy" by force. Is it really so surprising when you look at these Neo Puritans and their spawn? They've long been like that.
When all the representatives of all the Northern states supposedly complaining about slavery voted to pass the Corwin Amendment, it is foolish to argue that ending slavery played any role in why Northern armies invaded the South.
Northern Armies invaded the South to protect the money streams flowing into powerful Northern pockets and the corrupt Washington DC government.
And then they claimed they did it for reasons of morality, instead of the truth, which was that they did it for reasons of greed.