[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "It is true slavery could not be legally abolished by the North through constitutional amendment without southern support.
What southerners feared going forward, and rightly so, was extra-constitutional methods, including economic warfare and violence."

I have no problem with this particular argument, since it emphasizes the true root cause of secession -- Southern fears over what "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans might do against slavery.

But we should also note that many Lost Causers posting here -- including DiogenesLamp, FLT-bird and robowombat -- deny the centrality of slavery and instead focus our attention on whatever shiny objects they can conjure, be it tariffs, "Northeastern power brokers" or "money flows from Europe".

So, in the time honored tradition of jeffersondem responses, may I invite critic to answer critic?

;-)

[robowombat]

That's crap. No slavery, no war, probably. Slavery was the big issue yankees kept screaming about similar to beverage alcohol for the prohibitionists. A minority of yankees were true abolitionist nuts, such as Giddings, who really wanted a Haiti style slave uprising, most were people who liked to shoot of the mouths and feel very virtuous. Sanctimoniousness is one of the most common and least pleasant attribute of Americans and the English. The inner circle of the Republicans were former northern Whigs and some hard money Democrats. They wanted high tariffs, centralized banking, subsidization of railroad and canal promoters and the whole litany of J Q Adams and Clay's ‘American System’. In effect the promoters of of crony capitalism as they continue to be. Screaming about slavery was just a smokescreen to get the wave of men turning 21 to vote Republican. The National Republicans/Whigs were a permanent minority party because their obvious crony capitalism schemes were not attractive to the majority of voters. Slavery screaming was a strategic tactic to diminish Democrat votes and break the Democrat strength in the NORTH. Unfortunately the party of plunder miscalculated as to just how angry Southerners were in the wake of the John Brown affair and fearful that staying in the union meant being united with people who were going to try and murder as many Southerners as possible. This should be pretty obvious as to how angry and fearful the GOP propaganda and the abolitionist lunatics behavior would make people. How do white people today feel towards the progressive rats determination to ‘change the demographic’ or those idiots who chant ‘you will be replaced’ or ‘your grandchildren ( if any survive) will be brown’. Secession would appear to have been aperfectly rational alternative to the status quo in 1860. And in passing, I would today support California's desire to succeed. Life without that huge pool of illegals and communists would be better in every way and they could try and create their socialist/progressive paradise.