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You've got three perhaps four states that mention slavery as a cause. Your side constantly promote this minority of four states as speaking for all the rest.

You do so because you wish to believe this is true. Show me Virginia's secession statement which asserts the reason is slavery.

This is why we just ignore these efforts by your side to quote that tiny minority of states which listed it as *A* cause, and in many cases not the only cause.

But apart from that, it does not make a f*** what the Southerns states reasons were for leaving. They had a right to do so for any reasons they felt were sufficient.

The *ONLY* thing that needs to be justified is why the Northern states launched an invasion of blood death and destruction on people who did them no harm, and then pretended to justify it on the basis of the practice of slavery which would have remained legal had those states remained in the Union.

No. I'm not going to allow you to focus on slavery. You need to focus on the justification of the North for killing people in the South, and I don't want to hear any more lies about it being out of concern for the black man which virtually all the Northerners hated, and would wish dead.

Why did the North Invaded and murder people who did them no harm? Why did they destroy the lives and families of people who had done nothing to them?

Because they were manipulated by a master manipulator who was himself motivated to protect the power and wealth of that elite class of robber barons in New York who were making so much money from controlling Southern trade with Europe.

The war was launched to protect the economic interests of that same group of people that we are fighting this very day. That "deep state" "crony capitalist" cabal that constantly works to keep government spending ramped up to the max while leaving we taxpayers to pay for all that money being funneled into New York and Washington DC pockets.

And he convinced stupid people to focus on "the slavery" instead of who got rich as a result of the war.

You've got three perhaps four states that mention slavery as a cause.

Five states issued Declarations of Causes, and one is hard pressed to find anything but slavery as the issue in any of them

Show me Virginia's secession statement which asserts the reason is slavery.

Virginia did not issue a "Declaration of Causes," unlike those other five states. Maybe they felt that the part of the Declaration of Independence that said "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation" didn't apply to them. But they did cite slavery in their Ordinance of Secession: "The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention, on the 25th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eight-eight, having declared that the powers granted them under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States

DiogenesLamp: "You've got three perhaps four states that mention slavery as a cause.
Your side constantly promote this minority of four states as speaking for all the rest. "

But the key point which Lost Causers must ignore is that those were the first to issue "Reasons for Secession" Documents.
All told, before Fort Sumter there were seven such documents:

December 1860, South Carolina's official "Reasons for Secession" details slavery and no other reasons.
December 1860, South Carolina's Robert Barnwell Rhett writing to other slaveholding states includes four long paragraphs on slavery, three shorter paragraphs on taxes.
January 1861, Mississippi's official Reasons lists only slavery.
January 1861, Alabama's Ordinance of Secession lists only slavery as its reason.
January 1861, Georgia's official Reasons complains briefly about "bounties" for "fishing smacks" but devotes at least ten times more words to slavery.
February 1861, Texas official Reasons also complains briefly about Jefferson Davis & RE Lee's poor attempts to protect Texans against "Indian savages" and "murderous banditti", but spends many times more words on slavery.
March 1861, Georgia's Alexander Stephens famous "Corner Stone" speech:
Florida & Louisiana gave no reasons for their secessions.

For a more quantitative breakdown of states' reasons for secession, see this link.
Bottom line: seven out of seven Ordinance of, or Reasons for, Secession documents produced before Fort Sumter focused mainly or exclusively on slavery.
Secession did not become about anything other than slavery until after Fort Sumter.

DiogenesLamp: "But apart from that, it does not make a f*** what the Southerns states reasons were for leaving. They had a right to do so for any reasons they felt were sufficient.
The *ONLY* thing that needs to be justified is why the Northern states launched an invasion of blood death and destruction on people who did them no harm, and then pretended to justify it on the basis of the practice of slavery which would have remained legal had those states remained in the Union."

Right, like true Democrats, once Lost Causers lose an argument do they ever acknowledge their defeat and confess the truth?
Not on your life, never!
They just change the subject to ground they're more comfortable fighting on.

So here DiogenesLamp wants to argue: why did Lincoln respond when Confederates provoked, started, declared & waged war against the United States, in Union states?
He claims Confederates were "people who did them no harm", and yet the facts say differently.

In fact, over the Civil War's first twelve months more battles were fought in Union states & territories than Confederate, and more Confederate soldiers died in battle in the Union than in Confederate states.
Total casualties in those battles vastly exceed Pearl Harbor & 9/11/2001 combined.

And yet somehow this needs to be debated & justified?
Why?

Because of slavery?
Sure, slavery was not the reason Confederates attacked Fort Sumter and slavery was not the only reason Confederates invaded Union states, but Secession was "all about" slavery and so the war itself cannot be separated from that.

Sure, Lincoln was not elected to abolish slavery and did not intend to, but the war itself made Contraband, confiscation and Emancipations first necessary then mandatory along with abolition & citizenship.

Why that should drive our Lost Causers so berserk is beyond me, but then, they're Democrats and berserk is what Democrats naturally do.

Speaking of berserk:

DiogenesLamp: "No. I'm not going to allow you to focus on slavery.
You need to focus on the justification of the North for killing people in the South, and I don't want to hear any more lies about it being out of concern for the black man which virtually all the Northerners hated, and would wish dead."

All lies, complete cockamamie nonsense.
"The North" didn't "kill people in the South".
"The North" was indeed concerned "for the black man", especially as it relates to the Declaration's "all men are created equal".
And Northerners didn't "hate" black people or "wish them dead" -- that's pure projection & fantasy.

The fact is the freed-black population in the North was increasing 50% faster than in the South.
There's no evidence freed-blacks were treated worse in the North than the South and considerable suggestion they were treated better.
For one thing, some could vote.

What follows by DiogenesLamp in his post #351 is just purely insane -- stark raging lunacy with no connection to physical or historical realities, just the products of a very sadly disturbed imagination.

My condolences for your late deceased brain, sir.

The war was launched to protect the economic interests of that same group of people that we are fighting this very day. That "deep state" "crony capitalist" cabal that constantly works to keep government spending ramped up to the max while leaving we taxpayers to pay for all that money being funneled into New York and Washington DC pockets.

Oh, my God! I've figured it out! Diogenes is Noam Chomsky!

No. I'm not going to allow you to focus on slavery.

You're not going to allow?