It is the same today with "gay marriage." You CANNOT have this be a "states' rights" thing because of the constitutinally embraced principle of "comity"---that all things considered, one state agrees to observe the most basic laws of other states.
Lincoln saw this when he said we would be a "house divided," but either all slave or all free. That is precisely what the South saw---that property rights would be the constitutional issue, and sooner or later property rights in IA would have to be the same as those in AL.
I doubt we disagree.
Certainly Southerners saw Republicans as a threat to slavery in the South.
But I would challenge you to look at the Republican party 1860 platform itself and find anything there which threatened slavery in slave states.
No, the issue for Republicans in 1860 was not rolling back slavery, but rather preventing the expansion of slavery into non-slave territories, plus the enforcement of fugitive slave laws in non-slave states, as directed by the Supreme Court's Dred-Scott decision.
Yes, of course, the old Southern Democrat Slave Power (S.P.) claimed that any legal restrictions on expansion were an attack on SLAVERY, just as today the new Democrat Secular Progressives (S.P.) claim that any restrictions on the Power of Government is a "war on women", or racism, or "throw grandma off the bridge," etc.
In short, the Constitution had survived for 70+ years recognizing the rights of some states to legalize slavery and others to outlaw it.
What changed by 1860 was not Northerners' intentions to attack Southern slavery, but rather the Slave Power's insistence that slavery should not be restricted anywhere.
Now, do you still say we disagree?
Or if you prefer, Alabama would have to accept the property rights of Iowa. Southern slave holders would have to accept NY limitations on property rights when the slave holders brought their slaves to the Hamptons to get away from oppressive southern heat, and when they did that, their slaves would become free. That is what the owner of Dred Scott did: He took a slave to a free state, and wanted to overturn state limitations on property rights.
Too bad it took a war to correct that bad court case.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Along with several others recommended on these threads, I've added yours to my laptop's e-library.
Another interesting book on this subject is William W. Freehling (2001-02-15). The South Vs. The South : How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War.
"Statistics indicate other Southerners’ ability to cool white Confederates’ ardor; and the numbers illuminate but the tip of the iceberg.
Southern blacks supplied close to 150,000 Union soldiers and sailors (northern free blacks provided another 50,000).
Border South whites added 200,000 and Confederate state whites 100,000 soldiers to Union troop strength.
The resulting total of 450,000 Southerners who wore Union blue, half as many as the 900,000 Southerners who wore Confederate gray, replaced every one of the Federals’ 350,000 slain men and supplied 100,000 more men besides -- a number greater than the usual size of Robert E. Lee’s main Confederate army.
White Confederates developed no such replacements for their mounting casualties; and in addition, anti-Confederate Southerners piled on psychological, economic, and geographic burdens that ultimately helped flatten white Confederates’ resiliency."
A large part of my family comes from Southern areas which remained loyal to the Union.
They are the direct Southern equivalents of Northern Dough Face / Copperheads.