the most curious question I'm dying to have answered is, why did Lincoln want South Carolina back soo badly?
I think he was an egotistical maniac who was put in his place when the south left, and afraid the south would attack to take Maryland back, because Maryland at the time was pro confederate. He arrested the Maryland house of reps before they could vote on joining the confederate states of America. jailed and held all without charges or access to any legal counsel!. . Ol honest abe trampled on the constitution horribly and was one of the worst presidents we have ever had in that regard.
Yes, South Carolina’s Declaration of Causes does go on about Slavery. The Address of Robert Barnwell Rhett aka “the father of secession” who was an important South Carolina political leader was attached to and sent out with South Carolina’s Declaration of Causes. It went on at length about the economic grievances South Carolina and the Southern states had.
Why did Lincoln want South Carolina (and several other Southern states) back so badly? Because it was a cash cow! Its exports were extremely valuable. The North made a lot of money servicing those exports (banking, insurance, shipping, acting as wholesalers, etc) and the federal government made a lot of money on tariffs imposed on the goods those exports were exchanged for. Indeed, that is how the federal government got most of its money back then given that there was no federal income tax.
Here is what the leading newspaper in South Carolina said:
“The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism.” Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election
Here is what several other prominent South Carolina political leaders said:
“The north has adopted a system of revenue and disbursements, in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the north ... The South as the great exporting portion of the Union has, in reality, paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue,” John C Calhoun Speech on the Slavery Question,” March 4, 1850
George McDuffie of South Carolina stated in the House of Representatives, “If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, historians who record these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that neither this government, nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation.” While the Northern manufacturer enjoyed free trade with the South, the Southern planter was not allowed to enjoy free trade with those countries to which he could market his goods at the most benefit to himself. Furthermore, while the six cotton States — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had less than one-eighth of the representation in Congress, they furnished two-thirds of the exports of the country, much of which was exchanged for imported necessities. Thus, McDuffie noted that because the import tariff effectively hindered Southern commerce, the relation which the Cotton States bore to the protected manufacturing States of the North was now the same as that which the colonies had once borne to Great Britain; under the current system, they had merely changed masters.
“The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city.” - Robert Barnwell Rhett
In a letter to the Carolina Times in 1857, Representative Laurence Keitt wrote, “I believe that the safety of the South is only in herself.” James H. Hammond likewise stated in 1858, “I have no hesitation in saying that the Plantation States should discard any government that makes a protective tariff its policy.”
“Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett’s and Hammond’s much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests.” (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, p. 332)
South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams
South Carolinians in particular had been screaming about how the federal government/Northern states had been screwing them over economically for decades. Remember the Tariff of Abominations and the Nullification Crisis in the 1830s centered on South Carolina. This was the same argument 30 years later. This is what Leftists do not want you to mention. This is why they try to lie and claim it was “all about slavery”. If you look at the economic causes, suddenly you understand why the other 94% of Southerners who did not own slaves wanted out and were willing to fight to protect their homes.
Yes, just listen to the state song.
Had Maryland seceded, Washington, DC would have been surrounded by Confederate territory.