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?
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.
Yeah I’m just not buying your argument here. You dredged this up from another thread by the way. I cited my sources.
Davis never mentioned slavery in his inaugural address and said multiple times that that’s not what they were fighting about. He pushed for and eventually got the agreement of the Confederate Congress to empower the Confederate ambassador to Britain/France with plenipotentiary power to enter into a treaty that would abolish slavery in the CSA.
Oh but it does matter. Lincoln made it perfectly clear he was no threat to slavery. Many in the South understood that slavery was doomed in the long run anyway. It had already been dying out in several western countries as well as several Northern states, and was already extinguished in several more by the mid 19th century.
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?
Firstly this is a weak attempt to weasel out of the fact that the North offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment and the original 7 seceding states turned the offer down. Fact. Irrefutable.
Now as to 1776, the Brits did offer seats in Parliament. It just would not have been enough seats for the colonies to protect themselves from partisan legislation designed to drain money out of their pockets for the benefit of others. The South found itself in exactly the same situation in 1860. Slavery was not the real issue. Many of the most influential people in the South knew that as evidenced by the statements of numerous politicians and the editorials in the newspapers of the two largest ports in the CSA at the time. They could always go to some other labor system be it sharecropping or wages and still be quite profitable so long as they could set the terms of their foreign trade for themselves and so long as any tax revenue raised from their trade was spent for their own benefit. This war like most others was about money.