One side wanted to continue dining on their production, and that same side didn't want them setting up competition.
Where is the wiggle room here?
They wanted to lash out with force. So they chose to act unilaterally and ultimately militarily.
That's propaganda. They tried negotiating for over three months to get Anderson to leave Sumter, so trigger happy they weren't. Even then, had Lincoln not sent the warships, Sumter would have been resolved peacefully.
Of course Lincoln would have then insisted on starting it in Pensacola. His orders to Porter were going to start a war there if one didn't happen in Charleston.
If Davis had said that he wouldn't fire the first shot , or better still, if he and his cronies had stayed in Congress to work out a solution acceptable to both sides, there wouldn't have been a war
What solution could have been acceptable to both sides? You have the paying side, and the receiving side, and the payee doesn't want to continue paying, and the receiving side doesn't want to lose any money, and D@mn sure didn't want competing businesses set up in the South, so how are you gonna compromise?
It would have always come down to them wanting to leave, and the North wanting to stop them.
but they didn't because they wanted war (or at least were willing to risk war) to get what they wanted.
Independence? To not be controlled by the Wolf Fest at Washington DC? I want that now, and I think a whole lot of other people would like to stop sending tribute to our ruling class.
You reduce history and the people in it into simplistic cliches: it's all about the money, and if it isn't it's about power and ego. If that's the case, what makes you any different? What makes you any more trustworthy and upright than anyone else?
I don't gain anything. My bread is not buttered from either side being in the right, the blood of my ancestors does not cry out in distress because I take a specific position, so I have no ulterior motive to favor anybody. I can call it as I see it.
I also see myself as a philosopher. There are larger truths out there if we would but see them.
My point is: if you have a rich and successful country, you will have some places richer than others and they'll have attitudes that are different from those that prevail in other parts of the country.
Well see, i've been studying a lot of things for quite awhile, and I have noticed an odd correlation between money and liberalism. I've also learned that scads of other people have noticed this same correlation, and so it gives me encouragement that this is a real effect. I think the effect is even more pronounced when the beneficiaries of wealth have done very little to earn it, or even nothing at all. They develop "guilt" after a fashion, and so feel the need to speak out for the poor and oppressed, usually in some manner calling for government to do more for the poor and oppressed rather than themselves.
They don't lose all sense of proportion you see. :)
But I'm not against people being rich. I'm against rich people using their power and influence to tamper with the Government to keep themselves enriched or to provide benefits to their friends.
I'm against the collusion between the rich and the "deep state", "establishment", "Uniparty" that we have running Washington DC now.
And which I think was a permanent consequence of Lincoln's empowerment and war.
If it was, why complain about it every day? And if you are just going to keep repeating the same thing over and over and over again, what is to be gained from conversing with you?
But if war was inevitable that had more to do with people's mindset, not material factors. A generation that was more politically and diplomatically skilled would have been able to effect a peaceful solution.
The flaw in your theory is that the North was richer than you think and economically developed enough to do without the cotton states. There was no need to crack down on them if that would mean further secessions and fissures in the republic. The Confederates, by contrast, wanted those secessions and fissures. They wanted a weaker United States, and they were willing to risk war to get what they wanted.
But discussing anything with you is pointless because you just keep repeating the same hackneyed theory over and over again, as though you had some Marxist crystal ball that tells you exactly what was going to happen even if people acted differently.
The time for negotiating was BEFORE they seceded and started stealing things. "Negotiating" at that late date was little different than hostage negotiations. No matter what, you know it isn't going to be pretty.
His orders to Porter were going to start a war there if one didn't happen in Charleston.
Bullshit
I also see myself as a philosopher.
Don't give up your day job (snicker).