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Anyone can make threats. The threat to secede doesn't establish that states have that power.

Okay, tpaine, now you have lost all credibility and you are now 'backpeddling'.

And the world of 1861 was not the 'liberal' world as it is today in California. People were citizens of their respective states then, NOT the United States. Allegiance was owed to the states and states prosecuted acts of treason. If you lived in a state that decided to secede, yes, you either seceded with it (assuming that most of your neighbors voted for the secession) or you gave up your citizenship to THAT STATE. You aren't a historian are you?

To all... Please read the book "North of Slavery; The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860" by Litwack. It will be VERY enlightening for many of you! Also, it was very convenient for the north that McCormick invented the harvester early on in the 19th century. Unfortunately for southerners, the mechanized cotton picker wasn't invented at about the same time as the cotton gin. This made the ability to process cotton very lopsided compared to their ability to pick it. It wasn't until 1944 that the first mechanized cotton picker was invented by International Harvester.

Had McCormick invented the cotton picker first instead of the corn harvester, you would probably have had slaves harvesting corn in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania! And the Southern states would have been the abolitionists and the northern states seceding!

Funny how history goes, and how so many people attribute the course of history to our 'higher selves' when in actuality it is the God almighty dollar.

I've understood more of history than you, of that I'm positive.

And your smug pronouncments on my crediblity are amusing, as no one here gives a real damn about your opinions, that I can see.

See ya later. -- And try to do something about that swelled head problem while I'm gone.