Nonsense. Read the instructions the commissioners had. They were there to establish relations between the U.S. and the confederacy. Period. No talks to end secession. No offers to stop the rebellion. The only result acceptable to the delegation was acceptance of the legitimacy of their actions. Only after the U.S. had surrendered to their demands was there a vague offer to talk about 'matters and subjects interesting to both nations'.
And even if the offer to negotiate had been sincere, don't you think it was a little late? The South walks away from the debt, seizes what they want, and only then offers to compensate? Isn't that a bit like me taking your house and only then offering to pay for it? The time to settle those issues was before the South left, not after they had walked out on their responsibilities and seized what they wanted. If anything is disengenuous it's the suggestion that the South sincerely intended to pay for anything.
The time to settle those issues was before the South left, not after they had walked out on their responsibilities and seized what they wanted. If anything is disengenuous it's the suggestion that the South sincerely intended to pay for anything.
Congress spent the decade of the 1850s in acrimonious debate over whether secession was legal in the first place (throwing around terms like "treason" and "coercion") and you're saying the South should have engaged the North in thoughtful, sincere negotiations over compensation, pre-secession? You are ignoring the realities of the political climate.
Yes, I think the Southern states were prepared to pay. I also think they intended to institute free trade policies. But speaking of disingenuousness, let's not forget U.S. Secretary of State Seward's assurances to those same Confederate commissioners that Ft. Sumter would soon be evacuated.