Well, this is what South Carolina had to say, the first state to secede because of the election of Lincoln:
Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right....
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
Looks like it was all about slavery.
You have demonstrated a form of extreme tunnel vision in these posts. In doing so, you anger others, but you do not persuade anyone, not already committed to the same narrow view.
What possible end do you seek in this? Consider your post 78, why would you, who are not a Fundamentalist, even want to argue with Fundamentalists on the Bible's treatment of human bondage? Why are you preoccuppied with such an issue? You surely are not going to suggest that mankind's methods of obtaining labor, at different times, are the defining issue in human morality. Or are you? And if so, on what do you base such a belief?
And if you have such a narrow view of the moral compass, how wide is your definition of bondage or involuntary servitude? Do you include the military draft? Do you include taxes on income? Do you include the "Civil Rights" laws, which appropriate the employment and patronage selections of businesses-and by implication the labor of the businessmen?
How about the situation, where instead of the bondsman or bondswoman being acquired by conquest, he or she has elected to voluntarily enter into a condition, for reasons of security or what have you? For example, people submitting to feudal vassal status? Or entering religious orders? For one so focused, you must have a great many ideas on all of these subjects.
Take now, your post 84. You have bolded the references to slavery. But you seem to have missed the whole thrust of the resolution. It deals not with the merits of slavery, per se. It deals with an allegation of bad faith upon the part of one's partners in a venture--i.e. these United States of America. Talking about "slavery," only, again demonstrates your tunnel vision. For an obvious analogy, if I as a lawyer appeal the conviction of a client of mine, on the basis that he did not have due process in his trial for burglary, the issue is due process not the burglary.
South Carolina was claiming that they had been denied the bargain they had made. You may not agree, but you have missed the whole point of what you yourself posted.
Yet the real question, I would raise is this:
Why 137 years after slavery ended in America; why, at a time when absolutely no one is advocating its restoration, are people so totally hung up on "slavery" that they feel a need to attack other people's pride in their own history. As a Conservative, I am concerned. Because once rooted Americans cease to honor their history, all of the values for which Conservatives strive are done for. It is in a pride in who and what a people are, that they find the staying power to continue on the path to building their unique civilization. When they lose that pride in who and what they are, they founder. Look around you, and despite the lies about the benefits of diversity, the only places on earth that are really building, are those where there is a sense of cultural integrity--a sense of heritage and descent, a building generation by generation.
For some reason, you feel a need to attack that process.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site