House drops Confederate Flag ban for veterans cemeteries

politico.com ^ | 6/23/16 | Matthew Nussbaum

[ColdOne]

A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.

The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.

[rockrr]

When I lived in Louisiana and Alabama I met many people who had never in their lives been beyond the outskirts of their town. parochialism is a universal concept.

[x]

I think after their facilities, their fortunes, their lands and their workforce was destroyed, pretty much everyone saw that coming, they just couldn't do anything about it.

"Destroyed" workforce = freed slaves?

The handwriting was on the wall. Even if cotton stayed king, the cotton states had no monopoly on their chief export. War or no war, places like India, Egypt, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and Central Asia were going to get into international cotton production. It was foolish to think the bonanza was going to last forever.

Had the Secession movement been successful and made Charleston a port city comparable or exceeding that of New York, we would today be dealing with the consequences of the Global elite operating out of Charleston, rather than New York.

That wouldn't have happened. Smaller free population. Less developed transportation network. Worries about slavery.

Charleston wasn't the main contender in 1860. New Orleans was. It was the 6th largest city in the country in 1860 (down from 3rd in 1840 -- Charleston was something like 22nd or so in 1860) and the second busiest port.

But being a major shipping port doesn't translate into being a major manufacturing city or a world financial center. That wasn't going to happen to New Orleans and it certainly wasn't going to happen to Charleston.

Slave labor undercut free labor, but slaves had to be policed and controlled to a degree that inhibited the development of industry. Southern cities were still troubled by summer heat and humidity and diseases and weren't considered the best destinations for free labor.

Being a successful seaport or export center doesn't always translate into economic growth. Consider Salem Massachusetts, once the 6th biggest city in the US. Or consider the islands of the West Indies, once fabulously wealthy due to sugar, yet never world economic powerhouses.

[x]

Some New Englanders have very parochial attitudes. I went to college in Massachusetts with New Englanders who had never been west of the Hudson River and saw no reason to go. For them, Boston was the hub of the universe.

There are no Southerners who've never been north? No Westerners who've never been East?

I can't say if I met Northerners in school who hadn't been south to Florida or South Carolina or west to California or Nevada. Cross-country family trips were pretty common for the middle class. But I did know kids from the South who'd never seen snow.

[rockrr]

When I lived in New Orleans there was a sudden freeze that created ice sickles. My neighbors, who had never seen ice outside of a glass tumbler turned their water hoses on all their shrubberies to create more and larger sickles - not knowing that they were destroying all their plants in the process.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I'm not going to let you ignore the fact that the Union launched the invasion of another Nation's territory."

So how many times do we need to review the real facts of history, as opposed to your pro-Confederate wet dreams?

The Union launched nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- until months after the Confederacy:

1. Provoked war dozens of times by forcefully seizing major Federal properties, including forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc., while threatening Union officials and firing on Union ships -- December 1860 through April 1861.
   Many such seizures happened even before a state declared its independence.

2. Raised up a 100,000 man army in March 1861, at a time when the US Army totaled around 17,000, then added 400,000 more in May.

3. Started war with a military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861.

4. Declared war, formally, against the United States, on May 6, 1861.

5. Sent military aid to pro-Confederates fighting in Union Missouri, as well as supporting pro-Confederates in Maryland and Kentucky.

All that happened long before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and before a single Union army invaded any Confederate state.

Bottom line: the Confederacy was at war against the United States long before the United States began to respond.

DiogenesLamp: "I'm also not going to accept your incorrect premise that Ft. Sumter belonged to Washington D.C.
It was part of the land of South Carolina, and therefore it belonged to the people of South Carolina when they saw fit to remove themselves from the Union.
Washington D.C. had a claim to expenses, but not the land or occupation of it."

Total rubbish, and you should well know it by now, since many posters have linked to copies of the 1836 document by which South Carolina ceded the property to the United States.
Here is one link, the important language being:

"...this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory..."

DiogenesLamp: "They were expecting to resume receiving all that wonderful import trade created through Southern production.
They also realized that the Blockade (Militarily pointless, but economically critical) would prevent the creation and establishment of Southern trade with Europe."

In fact, in 1861 the Union blockade of Confederate states was nearly useless, as 90% of ships sailing to or from the Confederacy got through.
By 1862 that number was reduced to 80% and by war's end, just 30%.
But in the first year of war, what the Confederacy truly wanted to export or import, it did, and that included some cotton, despite a reported burning of 2.5 million bales by Confederates, to embargo Britain & France.
King Cotton diplomacy, it was called.

Regardless, the fact is that Northerners most closely allied economically with Southern cotton growers were Democrats whose house organ, the New York Herald, was highly critical of Republicans and supportive of peace efforts towards the Confederacy.
Those Democrats in no way pushed for Civil War, and were slow in supporting it when it came.
Many Democrats never did support the war and became known colloquially as "copperheads"

So you cannot blame Civil War on Northern manufacturers in need of Southern cotton -- those Democrats were the "peaceniks" of their day.

DiogenesLamp: "But you are leaving out the part of what would have happened to them without the blockade.
Take just a moment and try to find a rare bit of objectivity in your thinking, and consider what would have happened to Northern trade with Europe if Southern ports were allowed to remain open."

Objectivity? Coming from DiogenesLamp, that's rich.

Here's what you have to remember: the Confederacy itself declared an embargo on export of its #1 commodity, cotton.
Their reason was to create a "cotton famine" in Europe, to force Britain, France & others to formally recognize the Confederacy.
They even burned about 2.5 million bales, about half the crop in a normal year.
No Northerner forced them to do that, and in 1861 the Union blockade was stopping only 10% of ships trying to run it.
So the Confederacy did it to themselves: from cotton exports around $191 million in 1860, by war's end it was nearing zero.

DiogenesLamp: "Assume 90% of European Trade went to Charleston and Savanna instead of New York.
*THAT* is what they were facing in absence of the blockade.
Now maybe at first it wouldn't have been 90%...."

Sorry, but that's an insane idea, since there's no reason to suppose Charleston would be the "go to" port of a prosperous Confederacy long at peace.
Any number of other Southern ports were already far more important than Charleston in 1860, including Baltimore, New Orleans and Mobile.
Other ports like Norfolk in Virginia, Savanah in Georgia, Pensacola in Florida and, say, Galveston in Texas -- all had equal claim as Charleston to being important ports of Confederate trade.

But only New Orleans & Baltimore could rival Northern ports like New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and those only because much of their trade came from & went to Northerners.
And as soon as you start talking about "long term effects" of Confederate "free trade", assuming peace, then you have to factor in peaceful but powerful moves the Union could make -- chief amongst them lowering its tariffs to match the Confederacy's.

DiogenesLamp: "In the absence of Conflict, New York would have taken a major financial hit.
Conflict is what prevented New York from taking that hit.
It kept Southern competition and capitalization in check."

Nonsense.
Civil War brought Northern trade with the Confederacy to a near 100% halt, and so ruined innumerable Northern businesses.
That was the price of war they had not wanted to pay.
But the war changed everything, and where some doors were slammed in Northern faces, other doors soon opened up, and by war's end Union cities were more prosperous than ever before, on the whole.

DiogenesLamp: "Oh, and the Government was running on Debt in those years.
Looks like Deficit Spending was pump priming much of their economy back in those days.
I wonder if the Government running massive deficits is another area in which we can thank the civil war for our current mess?"

No, hardly, since from Day One, the US has fought every war with borrowed money, especially the Revolutionary War.
Indeed, the huge Revolutionary War debt was a driving factor in the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
Our Founders wanted a Federal government which could take charge of, and pay off, all its debts from the war.

And that has been it's intention ever since.

[x]

Civil War brought Northern trade with the Confederacy to a near 100% halt, and so ruined innumerable Northern businesses.

Stock prices did go down. As with today's Brexit, uncertainty hurts the stock market. I don't know abut the "wave of bankruptcies," though. So far, we just have the word of some very anti-Lincoln papers for that. Just as with Brexit, newspapers added what they expected would happen to their reports of what was actually happening. I'd like to see some real evidence, but I suspect businessmen were watching and waiting and hoping to weather the storm and most of them did.

[DiogenesLamp]

"Destroyed" workforce = freed slaves?

I am not going to indulge the need to pretend the welfare of the slaves is what motivated this conflict. I also note how you focus in on that like it's a life line.

No, we're not buying that propaganda anymore. The North had slaves too, and was perfectly willing to keep getting that money produced by slavery, so pardon us if we think that dodge is not relevant.

That wouldn't have happened. Smaller free population. Less developed transportation network. Worries about slavery.

You can't wave it away. The Transportation networks which were developed in the North were the consequence of greater capital and greater population. Those things increase with time and money. Charleston would have had both if they had been left alone.

Charleston would likely never have developed into a port as well suited as New York, because of the Hudson river among other reasons, but it would certainly have developed sufficiently to seriously hurt New York's competing business. It probably would have taken at least half of New York's existing Trade.

With more capital, the South could have built more rail lines and other improvements.

Charleston wasn't the main contender in 1860. New Orleans was. It was the 6th largest city in the country in 1860 (down from 3rd in 1840 -- Charleston was something like 22nd or so in 1860) and the second busiest port.

Again, being 800 miles further South made it less appealing from a European trade standpoint, but that would have been offset by sufficient financial incentives in the form of low duties. They would have made it worthwhile to divert that trade the extra 800 miles.

And Yes, New Orleans was/is a grand port, but again, it didn't have the internal distribution system that New York had, and again, mostly from lack of capital. New Orleans did however, control the access to the Mississippi, and through that could have carried much trade and traffic to the West and Midwest.

If it had been allowed to do so.

Again, the question is where the money ends up and who collects it.

Slave labor undercut free labor,

And *THIS* I believe is the dominant reason why so much of the Northern population hated it. It wasn't out of concern for the black man, it was out of concern for their own labor and wages issues. I can think of nothing more offensive to a man who works for a living than the thought that someone else gets free labor, and through it gets rich.

Southern cities were still troubled by summer heat and humidity and diseases and weren't considered the best destinations for free labor.

And that is absolutely true. The South never had the potential to grow like the North until the advent of air cooling systems. It was great for plants, but horrible for humans.

Being a successful seaport or export center doesn't always translate into economic growth. Consider Salem Massachusetts, once the 6th biggest city in the US. Or consider the islands of the West Indies, once fabulously wealthy due to sugar, yet never world economic powerhouses.

Salem has all the other ports to compete with. Charleston mostly had just Savanna. (On the East coast.) Being the closest port to the European traffic, Charleston would have seen massive growth.

Or consider the islands of the West Indies, once fabulously wealthy due to sugar, yet never world economic powerhouses.

Sugar started getting produced in lots of other places, and that hurt the West Indies.

[x]

And *THIS* I believe is the dominant reason why so much of the Northern population hated it. It wasn't out of concern for the black man, it was out of concern for their own labor and wages issues. I can think of nothing more offensive to a man who works for a living than the thought that someone else gets free labor, and through it gets rich.

You are holding people of that era up to a higher standard than people today and faulting them for not coming up to an ethical standard that we don't reach ourselves -- and that virtually no one could have reached at the time. Most people most of the time put their self-interest first -- do you think slave-owners and other Confederates didn't? If they do come around to considering the well-being of other people in some way, that's all one can ask for. That actually was the case for some abolitionists. My point, though, was that slave labor undercut the developments that would produce a modern economy, just as serfdom (and later Communism) did in Russia.

Charleston would likely never have developed into a port as well suited as New York, because of the Hudson river among other reasons, but it would certainly have developed sufficiently to seriously hurt New York's competing business. It probably would have taken at least half of New York's existing Trade.

Look at the map. Charleston didn't have the kind of population in its hinterland that Northern cities had.

Virginians and North Carolinians would be better served by the ports of Norfolk or Baltimore than Charleston. Alabama had Mobile (and New Orleans was closer than Charleston). There just wasn't the (free) population in the surrounding area to make the city a major center. Nor given slavery, was the city and state likely to attract a free immigrant population (or to grow on its own to the size of other cities and states). You backed the wrong horse when you kept slavery.

[rustbucket]

There are no Southerners who've never been north? No Westerners who've never been East?

Touche. Of course there are, but usually they are open to travelling to other parts of the country. The company I worked for recruited from colleges nationwide. Every year before the start of campus visits they held a meeting of recruiting team captains from the various schools. One of the team captains from the New York City area said that we should push the opportunity to work in the New York area to the students, and that they would all jump at the chance. It would be a big enticement to them in his opinion.

Perhaps so to some of the students. I hadn't the heart to tell him that the New York City area was mentioned far more than any other region in the country as a place they would not want for employment.

So, you are right. You can find parochialism anywhere. I've been to all 50 states. I prefer some over others, but something good can be found about each of them.

[BroJoeK]

x: "I'd like to see some real evidence, but I suspect businessmen were watching and waiting and hoping to weather the storm and most of them did."

Reports on the Confederate embargo of cotton exports are unclear as to how much Confederates actually held back from export, how much they burned, and how much eventually found its way to foreign markets (including Northern US) by more circuitous routes.

Reports do say there were great surplus stocks built up in Northern and European warehouses by 1861, and so there was little real "crunch" felt until 1862, by which time alternate sources (i.e., India, Egypt) were beginning to come on line.
It's a little like an OPEC oil embargo today -- yes, it would hurt some short-term, but soon other sources (i.e., fracking) would come into production, users would shift to alternate energies (i.e., natural gas), and life would go on...

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "Morril tariff doubled the percentages within 2 years.
Northern business interests saw it coming and visited Lincoln in March on 1861.
Remember his comment.... 'but what about my tariff?'."

But there was no Morrill tariff so long as Southern Democrats dominated Congress and the Presidency.
Even in 1861, Morrill could not pass Congress until Confederate state representatives & senators walked out.

Further, the original Morrill proposals were quite modest, raising average rates from circa 15% to 20%, still relatively low compared to historical numbers.
But after Deep South representatives walked out, and after winds of war began to blow, then Congress, in its wisdom, saw fit not only to pass Morrill, but to raise its rates well above previous proposals.

So DiogenesLamp's argument here is that high Morrill tariffs, in normal peace-time, would have driven 90% of Northern trade, not just south, but specifically to the port of Charleston, SC.
I'm only saying Morrill rates were only especially high because, A) the Deep South had left Congress and B) from its beginning in early 1861 the Confederacy provoked war, and Congress wanted revenues to support whatever responses might be necessary.

Bottom line: in a peacetime situation, Congress could just as quickly reduce tariff rates to match those of the Confederacy, which were roughly the pre-Morrill rate of 15%.

PeaRidge: "He sent the warships south within a few weeks of his inauguration."

In fact, only one "warship", revenue cutter Harriet Lane (crew of 95), arrived at Charleston to witness the beginnings of Confederate military assault on Fort Sumter.
Harriet Lane escorted a civilian steamer, SS Baltic, which carried supplies for Fort Sumter and around 200 US Army troops.
Those troops were ordered not to reinforce Sumter so long as there was no Confederate resistance.

So, Lincoln's mission to Fort Sumter was precisely the same as President Buchanan's mission in January 1861 -- to send enough supplies to allow the garrison there to hold out while negotiations continued.
Lincoln had hoped to trade Sumter for something important, like a state, say, Virginia.

Finally remember, Buchanan's resupply ship, Star of the West had turned back after coming under fire from Confederate cannon.
Lincoln only hoped that a more robust mission might drive (or sneak) through such fire and reach Fort Sumter.

Lincoln was wrong about that, but there's still no justification for endless pro-Confederate wet dreams regarding Lincoln's supposed ulterior motives.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Beginning with Abraham Lincoln.
FedZilla was created by Lincoln.
There was no putting it back in the bottle after he let it out."

Rubbish.
In fact, except for payments on the Civil War debt, the Federal Government by, oh say, 1872, was roughly the same size & scope as 1860.
For example, military spending in 1872 was the same percent of GDP as it had been in pre-war 1860 = less than 1%.

Yes, tariffs remained relatively high until 1900, but by 1917 had returned to the lowest levels seen since 1815.

And Civil War income tax (which had also been proposed for the War of 1812, but was not needed then) was abolished after the war, not reinstated until the 16th Amendment was ratified under President Woodrow Wilson.

So, whatever "FedZilla" proved necessary for the Civil War was afterwards eliminated as soon as possible.
"Progressive era" thinking did not become dominant until the turn of the century, circa 1900, and was certainly more popular amongst Democrats than Republicans such as Calvin Coolidge.

[DiogenesLamp]

You are holding people of that era up to a higher standard than people today and faulting them for not coming up to an ethical standard that we don't reach ourselves -- and that virtually no one could have reached at the time.

To the contrary my friend. All my life I had been taught that the Civil War was a moral crusade to eradicate slavery because it was evil. This makes it implicit that the objections to slavery were moral objections, not self-interest objections. Look at Battle Hymn of the Republic:

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the Sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

[Chorus]
Glory, glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, glory! Hallelujah!
While God is marching on.

Invading other peoples lands to abolish slavery was "God's Work", or at least so we had been led to believe.

And now when I look at the facts of the relevant history, I discover most people in the North didn't really care about the slaves, they cared about wage and labor issues (same as today) and they hated "the man" (envy) who was getting wealthy from free/cheap labor. (Same as today.)

My point is that we have been misled, not to portray these people as bad simply because they had an opinion that derived from their own self interest. Most rational people do.

do you think slave-owners and other Confederates didn't?

The Wealthy slave owners were most certainly interested in their own self interest. The reason slavery spread through the Americas was the result of people looking out for their own self interest at the expense of others; A Constant human curse. (same as today)

If they do come around to considering the well-being of other people in some way, that's all one can ask for. That actually was the case for some abolitionists.

The abolitionists were the "true believers", the morally motivated folk, but they were a tiny minority compared to the rest. Today their equivalent would be the "Eco Warriors" and the "Animal Rights" kooks. Still moralizing at others, but commanding no significant following. (same as today)

My point, though, was that slave labor undercut the developments that would produce a modern economy, just as serfdom (and later Communism) did in Russia.

I am not following here. What you say might be true, but i'm not seeing exactly how it may be true. By what mechanism would a slave or serf economy inhibit development? Presumably the large contingent of free populace could do the same thing they did in the North.

Look at the map. Charleston didn't have the kind of population in its hinterland that Northern cities had.

No it didn't, but economic advantages can often work wonders. Las Vegas made the Desert bloom because the laws allowed for that sort of Development. Had Charleston an economic advantage over New York, the population and development would have been forthcoming.

Virginians and North Carolinians would be better served by the ports of Norfolk or Baltimore than Charleston. Alabama had Mobile (and New Orleans was closer than Charleston).

The way things stood prior to 1861, that is true, but in absence of conflict, and with trade developing between Europe and Charleston, that infrastructure would have developed in the subsequent years.

Now of course if Maryland had seceded with the rest of the South, they would likely be *the* major port of the Confederacy because they were much closer to the Existing European Trade.

Because they would have been different Nations, that law banning cargo shipments on Foreign Ships between US Ports would no longer have come into play. Ships could have unloaded/loaded cargo in New York, and carried it to Baltimore, Norfolk, or Charleston without being penalized by that law.

My point here is that the Wealthy elite of New England saw Southern independence as a fiscal threat to their businesses, and pushed the President to stop it. (same as today.)

[DiogenesLamp]

So, Lincoln's mission to Fort Sumter was precisely the same as President Buchanan's mission in January 1861 -- to send enough supplies to allow the garrison there to hold out while negotiations continued.

Negotiations in which Lincoln consistently refused to participate.

The evidence indicates that Lincoln never had any intention of respecting the principle that States can become independent.

And really that is the crux of the matter isn't it? Whether states have a right, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, to become Independent, or whether our principles of governance requires the forcible subjugation of people who are no longer happy with the existing government and wish to leave it. (Same as today.)

All the rest is just spinning.

On this crucial moral principle, Lincoln positioned himself on the same side as George III.

The Confederates, and most of the nation at the time, positioned themselves on the side of the Founders.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "...corruption swirling around the Grant administration is the consequence of the influence these same classes of people (New England Power Brokers)..."

Sorry, I missed this one the first time...

Am not willing to defend "New England Power Brokers", as you call them, but am very uneasy with your over-eagerness to engage in class warfare against alleged groups who are neither specifically named nor known nor accused of anything in particular.
Further, your implication that there was no corruption before 1861, and therefore it was Civil War which taught politicians & businesses how to be corrupt, is just laughable.

Indeed, your narrow focus on economic reasons and classes of people suggests an underlying Marxist ideology, and tells us that you are likely on conservative Free Republic as a poser, a false flagger whose real ideology is quite alien here.

Are you?

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "Some Northerners admitted that their reasons for calling for war were not the result of differences in principles of constitutional law, but because their profits would be lost if the South was successful in becoming independent."

But you've quoted none of them here, meaning your formulation of their concerns is more likely fantasy than fact.

PeaRidge: "This was Lincoln's ultimatum to the South: pay tribute to the North or failure to do so will be interpreted as a declaration of war, by the South, against the North."

Yes, that is certainly what pro-Confederate newspapers howled at the time, but in fact, Lincoln said nothing of the sort.
Indeed, pro-Confederates of the time called Lincoln's Inaugural itself a Declaration of War.
But in reality, Lincoln's words meant just what he said:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
The government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

That Confederates chose to take umbrage and see threats where only peace was offered, simply tells us they were eager for war, itching for the chance to prove their own manliness and courage, hoping to repeat the great Revolution lead by Washington against the Brits.

But not a single Confederate leader could hold a candle to George Washington, or the other Founders.
And so those fools rushed into war where wiser men would have looked for other routes.

PeaRidge quoting: "3/30/1861 New York Times editorial:

"The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws..."

Surprisingly, the NY Times in 1861 was a generally conservative, Republican supporting paper.
But read carefully, and you'll note that, while expressing its economic concerns, the Times does not call for war as a means to redress them.
Neither would Lincoln, or his cabinet, be looking for a military solution, whatever the economic problems might be, until or unless the Confederacy launched war against the United States.

Which they soon did.

PeaRidge: "In an earlier editorial, the New York Times complained about loss of revenue because the tariffs were no longer being collected in the Southern states...

...Over one hundred leading commercial importers in New York, as well as a similar group in Boston, informed the US collectors of customs they would not pay duties on imported goods unless those same duties were also collected at Southern ports.
This threat was likely the proximate cause of the beginning of the war.
It forced Lincoln and his administration to abandon the initial inclination to turn over Ft. Sumter to the Confederates."

Sorry, but first of all, there's no evidence that Lincoln himself was ever prepared to abandon Fort Sumter without getting something valuable in return, such as his offer of "a fort for a state" meaning Virginia.
Whatever Seward may have told Justice Campbell, who relayed it to Davis' commissioners, Lincoln never said he was going to abandon Sumter "for free".
And when Lincoln's offer to Virginia's secession convention was rejected, Lincoln simply returned to the original plan of former President Buchanan -- send ships with supplies and reinforcements, if they were required.

All the rest is just pro-Confederate fantasies invented out of whole cloth to justify starting a war they couldn't win.

[rockrr]

LOL, he does seem “down with the struggle”.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "No.
I refuse to accept the addition of the words 'At Pleasure' to the debate."

Then you are an idiot, pure and simple, nothing more, nothing less.

Did you ever actually read the Declaration of Independence?
Did you somehow fail to catch what it says about serious actions taken "at pleasure"?

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations..."

No Founder ever disputed this basic concept, and it was expressed more fully by Madison in 1830.

DiogenesLamp: "The founders made it clear that people could leave for any reason they chose, and your attempts to make it conditional are an effort to add a lie to the discussion."

No, it's you who are lying.
Our Founders were clear: no unilateral secession "at pleasure".

DiogenesLamp quoting DOI: "...organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

And that is followed in the next sentence by the cautionary words against "at pleasure" secession I quoted above.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Name calling is not going to make your arguments correct."

That's no answer.
Answer the question: will you 'fess up to posting here to spread your Marxism?

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "So in the alternate reality where Jeff Davis and the CSA wanted the Civil War, if Lincoln had stood pat and not called up his 75,000 man invasion force then old warmonger Davis would have been marching north with his army of conquest.
Because after all, he’s the one who wanted war, unlike the entirely innocent Lincoln."

Within two weeks of Fort Sumter, Davis did just that, sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.

But your question is identical to asking, "what would have happened if the US had surrendered to the Japanese on December 8, 1941?
Is there any evidence Japanese wanted to invade California, Oregon or even Hawaii?
Wouldn't peace have been the inevitable result?
So really, wasn't Franklin Roosevelt the aggressor who attacked innocent Japanese at Pearl Harbor, and again in Philippines, and along with his ally Churchill attacked them again at Singapore & Hong Kong, plus the Dutch..."

FRiend, the real facts of history on this are undisputed.
Confederates repeatedly demonstrated their eagerness for war by:

1. Provoking war dozens of times in forceful seizures of major Federal properties: forts, ships, arsenals & mints, etc., while threatening Union officials and firing on Union ships -- December 1860 through April 1861.

2. Preparing for war by calling up a 100,000 man army (March 3, 1861), before Lincoln's inauguration and at a time when the total US Army was circa 17,000 mostly scattered in small forts out west.

3. Starting war by a military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861.

4. Declaring war on May 6, 1861 and simultaneously calling up another 400,000 troops.

5. Sending military aid to pro-Confederates fighting in Union Missouri, while supporting others in Union Maryland and Kentucky.

All this happened before a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any Union force, and before a single Union army invaded any Confederate state.

Those facts demonstrate the Confederacy was eager for war, and made no serious efforts to either keep or restore the peace.