America thinks the unthinkable: More than half of Trump voters and 41% of Biden supporters want red and blue states to SECEDE from one another and form two new countries, shock new poll finds

UK Daily Mail ^ | October 1 2021 | MORGAN PHILLIPS

[knighthawk]

Many breathed a sigh of relief when President Biden was elected, not for policy but for a reunification of the country after four years of tumult and fiery division under President Trump. But eight months into the new presidency, America's deep disunity might not be letting up.

A new poll has revealed that political divisions run so deep in the US that over half of Trump voters want red states to secede from the union, and 41% of Biden voters want blue states to split off.

According to the analysis from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, 52% of Trump voters at least somewhat agree with the statement: 'The situation is such that I would favor [Blue/Red] states seceding from the union to form their own separate country.' Twenty-five percent of Trump voters strongly agree.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "It was up to each state to determine what injury or oppression they deemed sufficient to secede."

That argument was never proposed in 1788, or at any other time before most or all of our Founders passed away.
And it is specious to the max when applied to 1860, since there was literally nothing then that legally amounted to anything more than unilateral secession at pleasure.

When our Founders talked about "necessary" and "injury or oppression", they were referring back to conditions on their 1776 Declaration, not to just a political faction losing an election.

FLT-bird: "Oh you mean in the 1820s? LOL!
Firstly what the STATES agreed to at the time is what is relevant.
They were the ones who were actually parties to the contract.
What does not matter is the opinion of the Madison 40 years later."

Of course, you don't think the opinions of the Father of the Constitution -- Madison -- matter because you're a Democrat and Democrats hated the Constitution from Day One -- they voted against ratification, supported nullifications, slavery, secession & war against the United States.
So naturally, you disagree with Madison.

But here's an inconvenient fact which you can easily verify yourself: no Founder at any time ever explicitly disagreed with Madison's opinions as expressed here.
Remember: Madison is totally OK with "secession" by mutual consent or by "usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect."

Note his word "justly".
But Madison opposes unilateral "secession" at pleasure and I have never seen where any Founder disputes that.
Nor have I seen where merely losing an election would be considered anything more than "at pleasure" to our Founders, any Founders.
Nor have you.

[central_va]

Any state could secede from the union if it turned out not to be beneficial to that state.

A lot of "conservatives" call that running away. I don't get that point of view.

[enumerated]

You keep doubling down on the same BS.

Slavery was like holding a rattlesnake by the tail. Only a few wealthy southerners owned enough slaves to make it worth fighting for - and they were not the type to do their own fighting.

The southerners who actually fought, were NOT fighting to keep slavery. My great-grandfather was one of them, and we have all of his letters. He and everyone he fought with were fighting to protect their homeland from economic tyranny and invasion.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "By the 1850s it was clear there was a power struggle between the two sides."

No, before the 1856 presidential election there were never "two sides" because there was never an anti-slavery party.
All the parties -- Democrats, Federalists, Whigs, "Know Nothings", etc. -- included voters & representatives from the Deep South to the Northeast.
For examples, three of four Whig presidents -- Harrison, Tyler & Taylor were Southern born slaveholders.
No major party before 1856 expressly opposed slavery.

Consider, in 1787, when Thomas Jefferson proposed, and Congress enacted, abolition in the Northwest Territories there was no major Southern opposition.
In 1820 Congress again addressed the Territories issue with the Missouri Compromise, about which Virginia Congressman John Randolph famously coined the term "Doughfaced Northerners" meaning Northerners who were happy to do what Southerners demanded.
Democrat President Buchanan (1857-1861) was arguably the last of the Northern Doughfaces.

Northern Doughfaces were a major reason there were not "two sides", and another major reason was pro-tariff Andrew Jackson Democrats.
Rather there were always multiple allied or conflicting interests.

FLT-bird: "No, it was not that slavery was doomed.
They surely had to see it was doomed in every place that industrialized anyway as Britain and France had. "

And you can easily prove or disprove your own claims here simply by finding examples of Southern Democrat Fire Eaters who publicly admitted Southern slavery was doomed and therefore should be gradually, peacefully & lawfully abolished.

When should we expect to see such quotes from you?

FLT-bird: "What was doomed if they did not keep pace with seats in the Senate was their ability to protect themselves from even more rapacious trade and tax policies being pushed through by Northern special interests."

That is pure bovine excrement, and you well know it!
The real truth of the tariff issue is that many Southerners, from Madison & Monroe to Clay, Jackson and even (for a time) Calhoun supported protective tariffs, in the latter cases even the so-called "1828 Tariff of Abominations".
In 1846 most Southerners were happy to support the new Walker tariff rates which were then further reduced in 1857.

In 1860 Republicans proposed to increase protective tariffs back, essentially, to their 1846 rates, and that Morrill tariff proposal was defeated by Democrats in 1860, and not mentioned by any of the earliest "Reasons for Secession" documents.
So alleged "rapacious trade and tax policies" was purely a Lost Cause lie, concocted after the fact attempting to explain the otherwise inexplicable and justify the unjustifiable.

FLT-bird: "No question there was a power struggle between the two sides.
Trying to portray the North/Republicans of that time as lily white/pure of heart etc is a complete joke.
They were as greedy as any people in history.
They had been sucking money out of the South for generations and were trying to pass federal legislation that would allow them to dip their paws even deeper into Southern wallets."

And those are yet more of the essential Lost Cause Big Lies.
The real truth is: all of that alleged greed & corruption came from slaveholders' Northern Democrat allies, not Republicans, which never existed before ~1856 and whose Whig predecessors were just as often Northern Doughfaces as not.

The Lost Cause Big Lie is always to conflate Republicans with Northern Big City Doughfaced Democrats.
They were not the same people.

FLT-bird: "Their [Republicans'] interests were in jobs in industry and public works projects (paid for mostly by taxes paid by Southerners).
People have always been willing to vote themselves other people's money."

So several facts need to be pointed out here:

1. Unlike today, when governments at all levels spend upwards of 30% of US GDP, in 1860 that number was about 2%, meaning something like 98% of US economic activity & jobs (especially Republicans') were unrelated to government spending.

2. Then as now the vast majority of Republican voters lived on farms, in small & medium sized towns or suburbs, held jobs in agriculture, small business, manufacturing, professions & other such "middle class" occupations.
   Then as now Republicans were usually the minority opposition party.

3. Then as now Democrats were an alliance of Big Business (slaveholders), globalist financial interests (of King Cotton) and Big City immigrant bosses (i.e., NY's Tammany Hall).
   And Southern Democrats effectively ruled over Washington, DC, almost continuously from the election of 1800 until secession in 1861.

4. Lost Causer gross exaggerations notwithstanding, the "Southern economy" represented roughly 15% of the US total GDP of $4.4 billion in 1860.
   In 1861 that Southern economy was deleted from the US totals and the result was roughly 15% loss of Federal tariff revenues.

5. So all claims that Southerners somehow paid the majority of Federal taxes are pure 100% bovine excrement.
   Even claims that "Southern exports" somehow "paid for" ~75% of US imports (and so tariffs) are pure nonsense, since the main thing "Southern exports" paid for was "imports" of manufactured goods from the North -- i.e., woolen & cotton clothing, shoes, hats, iron products (i.e., stoves, farm implements, railroad iron, nails, etc.), paper, soap & candles.
   There may also have been Midwestern food & livestock that were not captured in these statistics.

6. Finally, studies of Federal spending before 1860 show that it was roughly equally distributed North vs. South unless by "the North" you mean every state North of South Carolina!
   Again, it's all just more Democrat bovine excrement intended to bedazzle & obscure the real facts.

[DiogenesLamp]

Oh you mean in the 1820s? LOL! Firstly what the STATES agreed to at the time is what is relevant. They were the ones who were actually parties to the contract. What does not matter is the opinion of the Madison 40 years later.

Madison was on the committee that wrote Virginia's ratification statement. If he had any objections to the idea Virginia could take back it's sovereignty, he could have demanded the language be changed.

Virginia's ratification clearly states they have the right to resume the powers given up to the federal government.

Even if Madison believed otherwise, he was clearly outvoted by his peers.

[DiogenesLamp]

Now DiogenesLamp wishes us to believe that Northerners only opposed slavery for economic self-interest reasons and Republicans only opposed slavery for political self-interest reasons.

No, that's not what I said. Northerners primarily opposed slavery because they hated black people and did not want black people living among them.

Their second reason to hate slavery was to prevent free labor from competing against their own paid labor.

[DiogenesLamp]

Except that during the 1850s slavery was lawful & practiced in the western territories of Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah & Nebraska.

Here you go again with your technique of telling us something which is true, but very misleading. Rather than illuminating the picture, what you are telling us serves to misdirect and hide the truth.

In all of New Mexico territory, when it stretched from Texas to California, there were less than a dozen slaves in the entire place.

There were probably only a few slaves in all of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Utah, but you are dishonestly trying to leave the impression that this is equivalent to the millions of slaves in the Southern states. I'd wager there were more slaves in Pennsylvania and New Jersey at this time than there were in the territories.

This is what I mean about you. You argue dishonestly. The teeny tiny amount of slavery in the "territories" is insignificant compared to plantation slavery in the Southern states where there were hundreds of thousands of slaves in each state.

[BroJoeK]

enumerated: "The southerners who actually fought, were NOT fighting to keep slavery.
My great-grandfather was one of them, and we have all of his letters.
He and everyone he fought with were fighting to protect their homeland from economic tyranny and invasion."

I have no doubt that's true for you, meaning the statistics for how many Confederate troops owned slaves are disputed, but the commonly acknowledged number at the time was 25%, so 75% did not, and that likely included your great-grandfather.

But a problem with your argument is it ignores the fact: virtually 100% of Confederate leadership, including army officers, were indeed slaveholders, many owned large numbers of slaves and so all would suffer economically by uncompensated abolition.
And that's what they meant by your term "economic tyranny".

Plus you might remember that many Southerners from low-slave areas welcomed Union "invasion" -- in regions like West Virginia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, northern regions of Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri & Kentucky plus western Maryland, among others.
Those Southerners had no love for Confederates and were happy to see them driven out of their own Southern homelands.

[DiogenesLamp]

We don't have census numbers as to how many slaves were used in each economic activity -- i.e., cotton, wheat, tobacco, rice, sugar, manufacturing, railroads, construction, dock workers, household servants, etc. But we can still make some estimates...

There are some men whom, if you ask them the time, will proceed to tell you how to build a clock.

You didn't answer the question. I know almost nothing about growing wheat or cotton, but I do know that wheat is far less labor intensive than cotton.

Cotton requires pickers, but wheat is harvested by being cut and threshed. I think machines to harvest wheat were created long before machines to harvest cotton.

A quick internet search tells me 1835 was the year they had a harvesting/threshing machine, and so it took very few slaves to grow and harvest wheat as compared with cotton.

So now what was the difference in value between a cotton crop and a wheat crop?

[DiogenesLamp]

That argument was never proposed in 1788, or at any other time before most or all of our Founders passed away.

See "Declaration of Independence." The details are all laid out there.

The short version is this: Independence is a right.

[BroJoeK]

"I have picked strawberries, beans, cotton and helped as a ranch hand. In Immokoli, Circa 1962-64.
...trained with a bull whip.
And a “six shooter.”"

Howdy!

At around that same time I worked in tobacco, corn, tomatoes & dairy in NC, while one of my brothers even picked artichokes in California!

Just a few years later I trained on a 45-cal, an M-14 and M-16, though thankfully, never had to fire one in anger.

Long ago & far away... ;-)

[x]

In 1860, Southerners were convinced that Republicans were abolitionists and that Lincoln's election would mean the eventual end of slavery. It doesn't really matter if Republicans were actually abolitionists or not. Slaveowners feared that they were, and that led the Deep South states to secede.

Southerners weren't necessarily wrong. Policies that weren't explicitly calculated to support slavery could be expected to eventually weaken it. That was what the slaveowners thought and feared. Strangely, people who defend the secessionists don't want to admit any of this.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

We've gone over that. Yes, there was certainly language about slavery in the declarations of secession. I've never denied it.

Thank you.

You tried denying the language about the economic causes of secession that was in 3 of the 4 and which Southerners had been saying for generations.

I never denied they gave economic reasons. The last three paragraphs of the Georgia declaration illustrate this point. I suggest the readers read it so they can see what those economic reasons were.

Again, this is false. I cited not only their numerous statements about their economic grievances, but I also pointed out how few Southerners owned slaves. I also pointed to them turning down the Corwin Amendment which would have protected slavery forever by express constitutional amendment.

Did they free their slaves after that? No.

Those are all reasons to believe their real motivation for leaving was their economic grievances even though the Northern states violation of the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution gave them legal cover to legitimately say it was the Northern states which violated the compact.

From Georgia: "or the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic."

Also from Georgia: "The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party."

From Mississippi: "It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. It tramples the original equality of the South under foot. It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain."

From South Carolina: "But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery"

Again, I gave you several citations if you doubted any of those quotes. It was not merely that Lincoln "had to deal with" massive racism in the North. It was that he too shared those views.

Let's just say you're right and President Lincoln wasn't just talking out of both sides of his mouth, but "was a product of his time" as you say to defend the South.

The difference was that, unlike the Southern slave holders and their defenders whom you excuse for this, President Lincoln and the Republicans overcame this in themselves and freed the slaves.

Oh I don't have a reading comprehension problem. I fully understand that you want me to endorse a blank check. You demand that I sign off on a bunch of statements but won't provide any specifics. I know full well this is a trap. You are trying to get me to endorse something I don't support so that you can claim some kind of "gotcha" moment. No dice. Its not going to work for you. Ask me specific questions and I'll give you specific answers. Try to be disingenuous/intellectually dishonest and I won't play along.

No trickery from me is needed. As you already acknowledged that "Yes, there was certainly language about slavery in the declarations of secession. I've never denied it.", you know what you would be agreeing or disagreeing with. Just say "No" to my question, and that's it.

Again, the abolitionists were a tiny minority in the North.

Without pointing out that they won and slavery was abolished, what are your numbers to support this?

Not that I would doubt it, but it might give YOU an appreciation of what abolitionists were up against, and faced it until their goal had been accomplished.

The holocaust was an attempt by a government to deliberately exterminate an ethnic group. Chattel slavery was driven by individuals seeking profit. There is no comparison. You obviously haven't studied history.

I know what both were. I don't know if you have any female loved ones, but if you have a wife or daughters, or if you are a mother with daughters, I'm sure if human traffickers kidnapped one of your daughters and took them who knows where, you wouldn't say "Well at least they weren't slaughtered."

LOL! Are you seriously trying to argue that the Republicans were abolitionists? (this ought to be good)

The statement speaks for itself. All people.

Georgia's statement of secession also came out and said it.

Did they? Then why did they not agree to return when Lincoln offered the Corwin Amendment which would have protected slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment in his inaugural address?

Because amendments can be repealed, and they clearly didn't trust President Lincoln to begin with.

Georgia even came out and said this. "The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party."

Also, you do understand that only 4 states issued declarations of causes

Five, and all mentionecd slavery as a reason.

and the entire Upper South did not secede until Lincoln chose to start a war, right? Clearly they did not secede "over slavery".

The CW started in April 1861. Secession started much earlier as a result of President Lincoln winning the election.

NC was the last in May, if that's what you meant.

[enumerated]

“…many Southerners from low-slave areas welcomed Union “invasion”..”

First of all, there is no need to put quotes on it - it was an invasion.

Secondly, you are wrong that many welcomed the invasion.
I would agree, however, that they did indeed welcome an end to slavery.

I would even agree that there were secondary “benefits” of slavery that accrued to non slave owners - i.e. to the degree that the general economy was improved by it, one could argue that everyone “benefited”.

But I use quotes there, because slavery clearly was not considered a benefit to the vast majority of southerners - it was considered a curse, not a blessing.

Even in the colonial south, there was fierce resistance to the slave trade and the slave-based economy that was forced on them by the crown under the charter system. Governors of every slave colony routinely petitioned the crown pleading to be compensated in gold instead of slaves - these petitions were denied. As the slave population grew exponentially, most southerners - especially the slave owners - considered it a ticking time-bomb which could only end badly - for two reasons, neither of which were very noble:

1) when slaves finally outnumber non-slaves, is like releasing a tiger from its cage. How do you do it without getting eaten?
2) when the crown has refused to pay you in gold, and only pays in slaves, how do you relinquish all those “assets” without causing mass bankruptcy?

I realize these reasons for wanting to be rid of slavery are nothing compared to the man reason - the fact that it is immoral - I’m just saying the South had many reasons to wish it gone - and yet they also had many fears of ending it in the wrong way.

Many abolitionists were southerners. I don’t know if you were aware of this, but the crown imposed a fine of something like $100k(?) on those who chose to free a slave - and many, many land owners spent their fortunes freeing their slaves.

But I think the main point I wish to argue is not the guilt or innocence of southerners vs northerners, or what % were guilty and what % innocent.

My point is that Lincoln fought that tragic war to prevent the south from seceding - not to end slavery - but because the north needed the south to be politically and economically subservient - ironically, the north was tied the south as a vassal state - a slave state (ironically).

“Preserving the Union” meant preserving the circumstance in which the northern industrialists’ could exert political dominance over the southern agricultural base. It wasn’t an act of conscience in any way, shape or form.

[FLT-bird]

That argument was never proposed in 1788, or at any other time before most or all of our Founders passed away. And it is specious to the max when applied to 1860, since there was literally nothing then that legally amounted to anything more than unilateral secession at pleasure.

That is false. Each colony decided for itself whether or not to declare independence from the British Empire. The sovereign states had nowhere agreed to surrender their right to do exactly what they had done 15 years earlier. Nowhere in the express declarations of the right to "resume the powers of government" did any state say anything about needing some kind of permission slip from others.

When our Founders talked about "necessary" and "injury or oppression", they were referring back to conditions on their 1776 Declaration, not to just a political faction losing an election.

They were referencing whatever they themselves felt sufficient injury or oppression to reassume the powers of government they delegated to the federal government. They set no standard for themselves they would have to meet in order to exercise their right to secede.

Of course, you don't think the opinions of the Father of the Constitution -- Madison -- matter because you're a Democrat and Democrats hated the Constitution from Day One -- they voted against ratification, supported nullifications, slavery, secession & war against the United States. So naturally, you disagree with Madison.

You are wrong on literally every count here. I am not and never have been a Democrat. The Democrats did not exist as a party until Andrew Jackson who came along long after the constitution was ratified. And no. The opinion of Madison decades later doesn't matter. He was not a party to the contract. The States were the parties to the contract. What they agreed to at the time of contracting is what matters.

But here's an inconvenient fact which you can easily verify yourself: no Founder at any time ever explicitly disagreed with Madison's opinions as expressed here. Remember: Madison is totally OK with "secession" by mutual consent or by "usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect."

Jefferson expressly disagreed and felt states did have the right to secede. Does that really matter? No. Neither Jefferson nor Madison were parties to the contract - the states were. It was what they agreed to that matters. They expressly reserved the right to unilateral secession at the time of ratification of the constitution.

Note his word "justly". But Madison opposes unilateral "secession" at pleasure and I have never seen where any Founder disputes that.

I have posted the quotes from Jefferson numerous times. I'm not going to bother doing so yet again. Feel free to look them up for yourself.

Nor have I seen where merely losing an election would be considered anything more than "at pleasure" to our Founders, any Founders. Nor have you.

Nor does it matter whether you personally think a state justified in exercising its right to unilateral secession. What the legislature/citizens of that state think is all that matters. They have the right to exercise that state's sovereign power by seceding.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "uhhh no. We absolutely should not do that.
He said "the South" as you PC Revisionists often do.
That refers to all 12 states that seceded."

I know it takes a bit of work, you have to go back over 4 levels of posts, from 234->230->211->179->178 to find the original exchange on this subject.
Here it is:

FLT-bird: "Its important that we not allow political dogma to distort history."

TwelveOfTwenty: "You mean like President Lincoln didn't want to abolish slavery even though that's what he did?
Or the secession wasn't about slavery even though at least four of their articles of secession spelled that out?
That's revisionism."

Notice the term "the South" is not mentioned here.
So if we search for where that term "the South" is used, we find it dozens of times in lengthy quotes by FLT-bird, but only rarely by TwelveOfTwenty as in, "abolitionists in the South", though never in reference to Confederate "Reasons for Secession" documents.

FLT-bird: "I've pointed out several did not issue declarations of causes.
I've pointed out several seceded only after Lincoln chose to start a war to impose government rule on people who did not consent to it.
Those states are part of "the South" too.
You can't just ignore them because its inconvenient for your argument."

In case you've forgotten, the question here is: why did some Southern states declare secession?
So right away we have to admit: not all declared for the same exact reasons, and some gave no reasons.
Of particular note is, the set of reasons before Fort Sumter is remarkably different from those after it.
Those after Fort Sumter focused on coercion, oppression and injustice by the Federal government.
But those before Fort Sumter had different reasons, and those focused first & foremost on slavery.

Of the seven states seceding before Fort Sumter two gave no reasons (Florida and Louisiana), one (Alabama) included its reason (slavery) as a "whereas" in its Ordinance, and four (SC, MS, GA & TX) gave lengthy reasons.
Those reasons have been analyzed in detail and resulted in the accurate chart which you pretend is laughable (because it tells the truth you loathe).
Finally, we have the detailed explanations of Robert Rhett and Alexander Stephens, both of which were widely published and accepted at the time as real.

So, including Alabama's, five states gave us formal reasons for secession and the best you might say is that three of the five include reasons other than slavery.
But not one omits slavery and all dwell on it at great length, even if it's not the first issue they address.

So the conclusion must be that slavery was certainly on the minds of every Democrat Fire Eater secessionist, and indeed, that without slavery (as in 1830) secession could never be sold to a majority of patriotic Southern voters.

FLT-bird: "Alabama did not issue a declaration of causes."

Alabama included this "whereas" in its Ordinance of Secession:

"Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions..."

As you well know, "domestic institutions" is code of "slavery".

FLT-bird: "This is just false...
Rhett went on at great length to explain the primary cause was economic.
The Southern states were being economically exploited by sectional partisan legislation just as the 13 colonies had been by Britain a couple generations earlier."

In fact, Rhett does discuss (and lie about) tariffs & spending, and he also discusses slavery at great length.
So, in his first specific, Rhett claims:

"The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue -- to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures."

But all such taxes before secession in 1861 were passed by Southerners under mostly Democrat Presidents like Madison, Jackson, Polk & Buchanan, never by Republicans.
Further, they promoted the interests of all "mines & manufactures", North, South, East & West.

Next Rhett further complains:

"The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."

That's a flat-out lie, only possibly true if by "the North" you mean every state north of South Carolina!

And then after such non-serious complaints, about half-way through, Rhett gets to the real reason: slavery, and on that one subject he devotes the last half of his argument.

Reasons for Secession	S. Carolina	Mississippi	Georgia	Texas	Rbt. Rhett	A. Stephens	AVERAGE OF 6
Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	20%	20%	24%
Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	35%	50%	48%
States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	15%	10%	14%
Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	5%	0%	3%
Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0%	25%	20%	10%
Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0%	0%	1%

* Alabama listed only slavery in its "whereas" reasons for secession.

** Economic issues include protective tariffs, "fishing smacks" and alleged favoritism to Northerners in Federal spending.

[x]

After two centuries, why would the North suddenly wage a costly and tragic war over the issue of slavery at that particular time?

Suddenly? Concern about slavery had been growing for years. At first people took slavery for granted. Then they assumed it would disappear with time. Then slaveowners started to believe that slavery was a positive good that should be expanded. At the same time, many people felt it was an evil to be combatted. To believe that people only opposed slavery because they wanted to destroy the slave states is to lack what people back then called the "moral sense."

[FLT-bird]

No, before the 1856 presidential election there were never "two sides" because there was never an anti-slavery party. All the parties -- Democrats, Federalists, Whigs, "Know Nothings", etc. -- included voters & representatives from the Deep South to the Northeast. For examples, three of four Whig presidents -- Harrison, Tyler & Taylor were Southern born slaveholders. No major party before 1856 expressly opposed slavery. Consider, in 1787, when Thomas Jefferson proposed, and Congress enacted, abolition in the Northwest Territories there was no major Southern opposition. In 1820 Congress again addressed the Territories issue with the Missouri Compromise, about which Virginia Congressman Northern Doughfaces were a major reason there were not "two sides", and another major reason was pro-tariff Andrew Jackson Democrats. Rather there were always multiple allied or conflicting interests.

No, there had long been large sectional differences especially in tariff and trade policy, the size and scope of the federal government, the existence of a central bank, corporate subsidies, etc etc. The Tariff of Abominations and Nullification Crisis happened in the 1820s and 1830s. The letter from Jefferson I cited complaining about Northerners "draining our (ie the South's) substance" was a direct reference to the rapacious tariff policy that was proving economically ruinous to the South but which benefitted Northern special interests greatly.

And you can easily prove or disprove your own claims here simply by finding examples of Southern Democrat Fire Eaters who publicly admitted Southern slavery was doomed and therefore should be gradually, peacefully & lawfully abolished.

Why limit it to "fire eaters"? Seems like somebody is trying to stack the deck here. There were plenty of prominent Southerners who felt slavery's days were numbered. Those included Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, The Chairman of the Confederate House Ways and Means committee Duncan Kenner, prominent cabinet secretary Judah Benjamin and others. They could see it happening in their lifetimes. The British Empire got rid of slavery in 1838. The Northern states were gradually banning slavery. The percentage of Blacks who were freedmen had steadily risen in the areas of the South that were industrializing first (ie 50% in Maryland and 25% in Virginia). The percentage of White families which did own slaves declined in both between 1850 and 1860. There were plenty of people who could see what was happening.

That is pure bovine excrement, and you well know it! The real truth of the tariff issue is that many Southerners, from Madison & Monroe to Clay, Jackson and even (for a time) Calhoun supported protective tariffs, in the latter cases even the so-called "1828 Tariff of Abominations". In 1846 most Southerners were happy to support the new Walker tariff rates which were then further reduced in 1857. In 1860 Republicans proposed to increase protective tariffs back, essentially, to their 1846 rates, and that Morrill tariff proposal was defeated by Democrats in 1860, and not mentioned by any of the earliest "Reasons for Secession" documents. So alleged "rapacious trade and tax policies" was purely a Lost Cause lie, concocted after the fact attempting to explain the otherwise inexplicable and justify the unjustifiable.

Now you're just outright lying. Southerners complained bitterly about the Tariff of Abominations. That's what caused the Nullification Crisis. The compromise solution was to get rid of those rapacious tariffs. It was only a matter of time before Northern special interests would be back to try again. Aside from the fact that Lincoln was a huge supporter of massively high tariffs, the Morrill Tariff had already passed the House in 1860 and was sure to pass the Senate given they only needed to pick off one or two Senators and that could easily be done with good ole' log rolling. Y'know like Nebraska getting an opt out to get one Senator to vote for Obamacare. They'd have thrown in a few sweeteners and gotten one more Senator on board and it was sure to pass - and everybody knew it.

As for claims that Southerners did not mention it or complain about it bitterly and repeatedly before - that's the most laughable lie. I've posted newspaper articles, statements from the declarations of causes of secession as well as the statements of numerous Southern politicians showing what a lie it is you're trying to spread here. Anybody who reads this thread can see it for himself.

And those are yet more of the essential Lost Cause Big Lies. The real truth is: all of that alleged greed & corruption came from slaveholders' Northern Democrat allies, not Republicans, which never existed before ~1856 and whose Whig predecessors were just as often Northern Doughfaces as not.

The denial of it is another of the big PC Revisionist Lies. The real truth is the North was replete with greed and corruption. Its how the whole society worked. Note I did not say "Republicans". I said the North - especially New England.....Y'know the guys who sold all those slaves in the first place.

The Lost Cause Big Lie is always to conflate Republicans with Northern Big City Doughfaced Democrats. They were not the same people.

The PC Revisionist Big Lie is to try to push the Myth of the Virtuous North. That is, to pretend the North was motivated by some deep and abiding sense of morality and that their finely tuned morals were just so offended by the existence of slavery in the Southern states. Let's just forget that it existed in the North for a very long time and that they had sold those slaves in the first place and that they were continuing to profit quite handsomely from the existence of slavery via the cash crops their labor helped to produce.

So several facts need to be pointed out here: Unlike today, when governments at all levels spend upwards of 30% of US GDP, in 1860 that number was about 2%, meaning something like 98% of US economic activity & jobs (especially Republicans') were unrelated to government spending. Then as now the vast majority of Republican voters lived on farms, in small & medium sized towns or suburbs, held jobs in agriculture, small business, manufacturing, professions & other such "middle class" occupations. Then as now Republicans were usually the minority opposition party.

Firstly I did not say "Republican". You falsely assumed that's what I was saying. I was talking about Northerners in general - including ones who were not corporate fatcats. Even average workers there benefitted enormously from the exports the South generated which they serviced - ie shipbuilding, warehousing, insurance, lawyers, bankers, etc. They also benefitted from the subsidies the federal government gave (paid overwhelmingly by Southerners) to the building of railroads, canals, etc. As well as corporate subsidies which went overwhelmingly to the North.

Then as now Democrats were an alliance of Big Business (slaveholders), globalist financial interests (of King Cotton) and Big City immigrant bosses (i.e., NY's Tammany Hall).

This is mostly false. It was the Whigs and later Republicans who were backed by big business. Lincoln was the chief counsel and lobbyist for the huge Illinois Central Railroad after all. The corporate fatcats knew exactly who they were nominating. They knew Lincoln was their man. He told audiences that massive tariffs and government subsidies were his #1 priority.

And Southern Democrats effectively ruled over Washington, DC, almost continuously from the election of 1800 until secession in 1861.

This is again false. The South had been outvoted in the House of Representatives from day one. They never had the population the North did. Its true Virginia had a run of presidents. Then again, Virginia had been the cradle of the War of Independence. It had provided Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Patrick Henry, George Mason, etc.

Lost Causer gross exaggerations notwithstanding, the "Southern economy" represented roughly 15% of the US total GDP of $4.4 billion in 1860.

PC Revisionists seem to gloss over the fact that at the time the Constitution was ratified it was the South that was by far the richest part of the country. Being much poorer, the North claimed it needed massive subsidies to get its infant industries on their feet. The South agreed in the name of national unity but once those no longer infant industries got on their feet, the North decided it liked getting a steady flow of Southern cash every year and did not want to give it up. Instead it clamored for even more. After a couple generations of this, Southerners got fed up.

In 1861 that Southern economy was deleted from the US totals and the result was roughly 15% loss of Federal tariff revenues. So all claims that Southerners somehow paid the majority of Federal taxes are pure 100% bovine excrement.

This is yet another PC Revisionist outright lie.

In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote: The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097. Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097. Had the same amount been paid by the two sections in the constitutional ratio of their federal population, the South would have paid only $394,707,917, and the North $532,342,180. Therefore, the slaveholding States paid $316,492,083 more than their just share, and the free States as much less.

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. https://mises.org/library/lincolns-tariff-war

"Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)

South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams

As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North.

"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North." - Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327

Even claims that "Southern exports" somehow "paid for" ~75% of US imports (and so tariffs) are pure nonsense, since the main thing "Southern exports" paid for was "imports" of manufactured goods from the North -- i.e., woolen & cotton clothing, shoes, hats, iron products (i.e., stoves, farm implements, railroad iron, nails, etc.), paper, soap & candles. There may also have been Midwestern food & livestock that were not captured in these statistics. Finally, studies of Federal spending before 1860 show that it was roughly equally distributed North vs. South unless by "the North" you mean every state North of South Carolina! Again, it's all just more Democrat bovine excrement intended to bedazzle & obscure the real facts.

The usual PC Revisionist lies. This is what NORTHERN newspapers said at the time:

On 18 March 1861, the Boston Transcript noted that while the Southern states had claimed to secede over the slavery issue, now "the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...."

The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. We now see whither our tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. WE WERE DIVIDED AND CONFUSED UNTIL OUR POCKETS WERE TOUCHED." New York Times March 30, 1861

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade. It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose. No, we must not let the South go." The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861

That either revenue from these duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed, the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up. We shall have no money to carry on the government, the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe....allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten percent which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York. The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports." New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article "What Shall be Done for a Revenue?"

On the very eve of war, March 18, 1861, the Boston Transcript wrote: If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty is laid upon the imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby. The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York. In addition to this, the manufacturing interest of the country will suffer from the increased importations resulting from low duties….The…[government] would be false to all its obligations, if this state of things were not provided against.

[demanding a blockade of Southern ports, because, if not] "a series of customs houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers, will be subject to Southern tolls." The Philadelphia Press 18 March 1861

December 1860, before any secession, the Chicago Daily Times foretold the disaster that Southern free ports would bring to Northern commerce: "In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow."Chicago Daily Times Dec 1860

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually." - Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

As usual BroJoeK is a joke.

[BroJoeK]

enumerated: "First of all, there is no need to put quotes on it - it was an invasion.
Secondly, you are wrong that many welcomed the invasion.
I would agree, however, that they did indeed welcome an end to slavery"

The quotes on "invasion" belong there because regions similar to the Appalachian mountains from NC to TN & WVA had few to no slaves in 1860, so voted against secession, and welcomed Union troops to protect them from Confederates.

enumerated: "My point is that Lincoln fought that tragic war to prevent the south from seceding - not to end slavery - but because the north needed the south to be politically and economically subservient - ironically, the north was tied the south as a vassal state - a slave state (ironically)."

A lot of your post here is true & understandable enough, but this sentence is a lie, or several lies wrapped into one sentence.
Begin here: Lincoln did not start the war, he responded to Confederate threats, provocations & starting war at Fort Sumter -- that was Jefferson Davis' choice, made despite warnings against it:

"Mr. President [Davis], at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[19]
Robert Toombs, CSA Secretary of State, April 9, 1861

But Davis ignored Toombs' perfectly sound advice and the results were just as predicted.

Second, Civil War was indeed about preserving the Union, first, but Union leaders very quickly saw the destruction of Confederate slavery as necessary to military victory.
And since that matched exactly with Republican moral values, it soon became law (August 1861) and eventually the 13th Amendment.

Third, your claim that, "the north needed the south to be politically and economically subservient" is total, complete bovine excrement.
What the Union did need was the destruction of Confederacy and abolition of their slavery.
Once that was accomplished -- between 1865 & 1876 -- the South resumed its normal place in the Union.

enumerated: "“Preserving the Union” meant preserving the circumstance in which the northern industrialists’ could exert political dominance over the southern agricultural base.
It wasn’t an act of conscience in any way, shape or form."

And yet again the total lie.
You should stop lying, FRiend, no matter how good it feeeeels, lying is very bad for your soul, and will make you sick in the head.
So stop doing it, FRiend.
Once you get over "truth sickness" you'll feel much better, long term.

[FLT-bird]

Did they free their slaves after that? No.

and? They could have had slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. Why go to war to obtain something the other side is quite willing to give you from the outset? That makes no sense.....if protection of slavery is really what was motivating them.

From Georgia: blah blah blah

Yeah. They argued the North broke the deal. They were right. The Northern states DID violate the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US constitution. Their legal argument is completely sound.

Let's just say you're right and President Lincoln wasn't just talking out of both sides of his mouth, but "was a product of his time" as you say to defend the South. The difference was that, unlike the Southern slave holders and their defenders whom you excuse for this, President Lincoln and the Republicans overcame this in themselves and freed the slaves.

"Overcame this in themselves". No. They started a war they thought was going to be easy and cheap. They started it for money/empire. It turned out to be a huge costly bloodbath. They had to tell their own voters something. They couldn't say "your son/brother/husband died so that the special interests which fund my campaigns can make more money". So they had to try to pretend the war had been about some noble cause other than that thing wars are almost always about....ie money.....

No trickery from me is needed. As you already acknowledged that "Yes, there was certainly language about slavery in the declarations of secession. I've never denied it.", you know what you would be agreeing or disagreeing with. Just say "No" to my question, and that's it.

Are you asking me if I agree with or approve of slavery? Of course not. Who, born in the late 20th century anywhere in the Western world is going to agree with it? That doesn't mean I'm going to condemn everybody who lived back then for the terrible crime of not being born in modern times.

Without pointing out that they won and slavery was abolished, what are your numbers to support this?

How did their candidates do in elections? Here are what the big Northern newspapers were saying:

"Evil and nothing but evil has ever followed in the track of this hideous monster, abolition. Let the slave alone and send him back to his master where he belongs." The Daily Chicago Times Dec 7 1860

opposed abolition of slavery….. proposed slaves should be allowed to marry and taught to read and invest their money in savings accounts...which would "ameliorate rather than to abolish the slavery of the Southern States."...and would thus permit slavery to be "a very tolerable system." New York Times Jan 22 1861

We have no more right to meddle with slavery in Georgia, than we have to meddle with monarchy in Europe. Providence Daily Post Feb 2 1861

"the immense increase in the numbers of slaves within so short a time speaks for the good treatment and happy, contented lot of the slaves. They are comfortably fed, housed and clothed, and seldom or never overworked." New York Herald (the largest newspaper in the country at the time) March 7, 1861

I know what both were. I don't know if you have any female loved ones, but if you have a wife or daughters, or if you are a mother with daughters, I'm sure if human traffickers kidnapped one of your daughters and took them who knows where, you wouldn't say "Well at least they weren't slaughtered."

Nobody is saying chattel slavery was anything other than horrible. Still, I'd much rather be a chattel slave with the chance to marry and raise a family like many slaves did than be sent to a horrible nazi death camp. In the scale of awfulness, the latter is much much worse.

The statement speaks for itself. All people.

that did not apply to Blacks in the thinking of people at the time. The Republicans were not abolitionists.

Because amendments can be repealed, and they clearly didn't trust President Lincoln to begin with.

Its time for a civics lesson and some basic math. It takes 2/3rds of each house of congress, the signature of the president and then 3/4s of the states to get a constitutional amendment passed. At the time 15 states still had slavery. Thus if they voted against it, it would take 45 more states voting for it to pass a constitutional amendment that would repeal the Corwin Amendment.

45+15=60. It would take a union of 60 states assuming no new states allowing slavery came in. We only have 50 states even now. '

They could do the math. Everybody knew this meant for slavery to be abolished, it would take the consent of at least several of the states that still allowed slavery. In other words, they could have forced the other states to agree to a compensated emancipation scheme that ensured slave owners suffered no financial loss for freeing their slaves. Slavery would be effectively irrevocable without the consent of the slaveholding states.

Georgia even came out and said this. blah blah blah

Yes we've established that the Northern states violated the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution and thus violated the compact.

Five, and all mentionecd slavery as a reason.

South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Mississippi. Who else? Yes they did all mention that the Northern states had violated the constitution.

The CW started in April 1861. Secession started much earlier as a result of President Lincoln winning the election. NC was the last in May, if that's what you meant.

What I meant was that Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri did not secede over anything other than Lincoln choosing to start a war to impose government rule over sovereign states which did not consent to be ruled by it. They seceded over the state's right of self determination.