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I’m pretty sure nobody at the time put it that way.

I’m pretty sure you’re digging through old threads and not this one.

-——————————————————————————————Davis’s chance to win the war hinged on his getting recognition from Britain, France, and other countries. Saying that the war was about slavery would defeat his purposes. You’ll notice that what he said in his inaugural address was different from what he said in his message to Congress: the inaugural address was more likely to be picked up by the world press, so he avoided talk about slavery.

That’s your interpretation. I disagree. Davis never mentioned slavery in his inaugural address. Lincoln only mentioned slavery in his to endorse slavery forever by express constitutional amendment.

The fear of emancipation and racial equality was what led to Mississippi’s decision for secession. It doesn’t matter that the Republicans didn’t support racial equality. That’s what slaveowners feared. And Davis was clear about that when he wasn’t trying to fudge or hedge.

It was clear that the North supported neither equality nor emancipation. If anybody had any doubts about that, Lincoln made it quite clear that he was not in favor of emancipation. In fact the North offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. Yet this failed to bring the original 7 seceding states back in. Obviously slavery was not their primary concern. There’s no way around those facts.

“Secession, southerners argued, would ‘liberate’ the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South.” (John A. Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, Volume One, Sixth Edition, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)

Think about it a minute. Plenty of secessionists, like Louis Wigfall, wanted an agrarian society that would concentrate on producing agricultural produce and not industrialize. Even those who did look forward to developing a different kind of economy wouldn't have spoken of a "balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North." If they did talk in that 20th century way, they might not have been secessionists.

Davis never mentioned slavery in his inaugural address.

Of course not, because the eyes of the world were on him. His inaugural would have been taken down by foreign reporters and diplomats and circulated in foreign capitals. Look at what Davis said in his farewell speech in the Senate and you will learn how important slavery and race were to Jefferson Davis and (in his view) to his fellow Mississippians.

It was clear that the North supported neither equality nor emancipation. If anybody had any doubts about that, Lincoln made it quite clear that he was not in favor of emancipation.

It doesn't matter, slaveowners thought that if free soilers like Lincoln ran the government, slavery was doomed in the long run.

In fact the North offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. Yet this failed to bring the original 7 seceding states back in. Obviously slavery was not their primary concern.

The American Revolution was about taxation without representation. Can we all agree about that?

If Britain offered at the end of 1776 or the beginning of 1777 or even later to stop taxing the colonists or to give them seats in Parliament, would that have put an end to the Revolution? Would the Continental Army and Congress conclude that they'd gotten what they wanted and give up on independence?

Of course not. They already decided that they wanted their own country. They'd already given up on Britain and Britain's promises. So it was with the secessionists of 1861. Whatever Lincoln or Congress offered it was too late. Is there really any argument about that?