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To: PeaRidge
Remember he said on March 4 that he would tolerate slavery but not the non-payment of the tariff. "

No. He said it was not within his power or authority to interfer with slavery where it existed but that he could not tollerate revolution against legitimate constitutional authority. Paying taxes is not and never has been an option that some states could just decide not to do -- George Washington demonstrated that fact 70 years eariler.

Re-supplying Anderson and his handful of men was no military threat even to the measly 7-state so-called confederacy of April 1861. The fact is that the longer Anderson and Sumter could hold out, the more silly the rebellion looked to the rest of the nation and the world and with each passing day diminished the chance their coup had of sucess. Only open warfare could provoke the upper south join with the radical fire-eaters and that is why Davis chose war. If he hadn't, his confederacy would have slowly evaporated.

You neo-rebels turn every fact of history on it's head to try to justify actions of treason and make yourselves look downright silly by doing it.

74 posted on 10/19/2003 1:21:44 PM PDT by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: Ditto
Don't bother to roll out that Whiskey Rebellion rationalization like the other Lincoln apologists. That was a tax revolt in a state of the Union.
Lincoln was trying to impose a military solution to a political problem in states that were not a part of the Union. There was no federal authorities...they had all resigned from their jobs...only a few military types were left.

"He said it was not within his power or authority to interfer with slavery where it existed..."

He did say that. But his predecessor and the attorney general had said the same thing about secession five months earlier. A speech by Lincoln and his logic alone did not change anything.

The words you use are misleading you. There was no "coup". The states' leaders clearly followed their legislative rules in conducting the secession.

There was no "rebellion". The Southern Peace Commissioners had been in Washington for five months waiting on the government to agree to peace while a dozen plus formerly federal posts were occupied without the loss of one life.

There was no "open warfare" all during this time. People freely traveled from North to South and vice versa. Trade ships still sailed from Northern ports to Southern ports all during the balance of Buchanan's government, and 38 days of Lincoln's new presidency.

The firing on Ft. Sumter stopped an invasion. Whatever else it came to be was the result of the Northern press and the Lincoln government.

Jefferson Davis did not bring war to the North. He made the decision to defend the states that had agreed to join themselves in their own Union.

It was clear that Lincoln would tolerate slavery but not the failure to pay taxes. He couldn't. His government would fail without the tariff revenue from the production of goods from the South.
75 posted on 10/21/2003 9:00:55 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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