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"There is a difference between overthrowing a tyranny (represented by the British crown) and walking away because you didn't like the result of a national election. Please don't compare Jeff Davis and his attempted slavautocracy with the founders of this great country."

You, my friend, are woefully ignorant of the facts that led to the secession of the South from these United States of America...it was in fact unfair, tyrannical over-taxation of the South (by the more populous, dominant North) that pushed the South over the edge, much in the same way that the spark that ignited the Sons of Liberty to revolt was the Stamp Tax imposed by the British government on the American colonists.

Secession to protect slavery made no sense at all, even though some Southerners said so, because slavery was secured by the Constitution, by the Supreme Court and even by Abe Lincoln's public promises that he had neither plans nor desire to interfere with it. The war was actually a tariff war...Lincoln trying to hang on to millions of dollars per year in tariffs on Southern goods.

"My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone I would also do that." - Lincoln to Horace Greeley of the NY Tribune August 22, 1862.

After the 1828 tariff law, the South almost seceded. In 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North. The Republican platform of 1860 called for higher tariffs; that was implemented by the new Congress in the Morill tariff of March 1861, signed by President Buchanan before Lincoln took the oath of office. It imposed the highest tariffs in US history, with over a 50% duty on iron products and 25% on clothing; rates averaged 47%. Note the close proximity of this tariff to the start of the war on April 12. Cause and effect.

As the North American Review (Boston, October 1862) put it: "Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation".

The animosities actually preceded the Revolution (note that the nations capital was located in Washington DC, instead of New York, to ease ongoing tensions between the North and South).

Moreover, the South had threatened on many occassions to succeed if Lincoln accepted office, and that's exactly what they did.

Here's a question for you: If you were Lincoln, would you have assumed the Presidency knowing that it would cause the Southern states to succeed and most likely lead to bloody civil war?

Personally, I would have stepped down, led efforts to reconcile the hatred on both sides of the Mason-Dixon, and sought a peaceful resolution of the animus, out of respect for the Constitution, the Republic, the Founding Fathers and the People of the United States.

Of course, there seemed to be another agenda afoot...

Lincoln preceded to power through constitutional election, despite being denied his rightful place on the ballot in the slave power south.

The south began secession before Lincoln assumed the presidency. All one has to do is read the Declaration of Causes to know the real reason for secession was slavery, so spare me the regurgitated pap about states rights and tariffs..

The only American tyrant in the 1860s was a crossdresser named Jefferson Davis, who attempted to create a slave empire, and failed.

Here's a question for you: If you were Lincoln...

If I were Lincoln, I would have stormed the port of Charleston and hung every Confederate I caught from the nearest tree. Then I would have sailed for New Orleans...