In Defense of Lee And Jackson

[Silver]

Chief Justice Salmon Chase, who ha administered the oath, later commented that Lincoln seemed to intentionally kiss two particular verses from Isaiah 5...verses 25 and 26:

Here's everything you need to know about Chase...hmmm...sounds like the name of a bank...

http://www.history.com/topics/salmon-p-chase
Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873) was a U.S. senator, governor of Ohio and Supreme Court chief justice who served as the U.S. secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War (1861-65). A staunch abolitionist, Chase spent his early career as a lawyer and became known as “the attorney general for fugitive slaves” for his frequent defenses of runaway blacks. After representing Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 1849 to 1855, Chase went on to serve as the state’s governor from 1855 to 1859. He made a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 before serving as Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of the Treasury. Chase was responsible for managing the finances of the Union during the Civil War and was instrumental in establishing the national banking system and issuing paper currency. Chase resigned his position in June 1864 and was appointed chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court later that year. He would serve until his death in 1873 at the age of 65. (close quote)

Let's open our eyes and see how Presidents have been puppets for a long, long time.

What's your point? So what that the Chief Judge was a globalist. That had nothing to do with the scripture Lincoln chose and why and Chase's own observation of the "kiss".

The thread has expanded beyond the defense of Lee and Jackson so I was simply providing a little more background on another participant in the events of those days.

[Finrock]

Red,

People love to say it was a war over slavery. The truth is, only 2% of the southern population owned the number of slaves required to run a plantation. Most southerners had fewer than 5 or had none at all. When the war was over, most slaves not on a plantation stayed with their white families because they loved their white families and their white families loved them. They were truly family.

You seem to assert credentials and the SOS, without documentation. I am the only one to reference a Civil war era document (The actual Constitution of the Confederacy), instead of just assertions and opinion.

You also may have problems reading. I have agreed before that most southern SOLDIERS, and I will add most Southern CITIZENS did not own slaves, but the Oligarchy who controlled the government, and who were responsible for the Secession DID own slaves. As I have stated over and over, I do not consider people like Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson and other southerns who served their state or "country" as evil, but the country that was created by those oligarchs was nothing but despicable, and despite you posturing and blabbing, you have shown nothing to disprove this.

Regards,

George Clay

George,

Where did you "reference" the Constitution of the Confederacy in support of your position? I don't mean where did you refer to it, but where did you reference it?

Can you support your position without any personal attacks against others? I'm interested in seeing how you support your position. Please plainly assert your position and then please reference your supporting material(s) which sustain or support your position.

Thanks!

-Finrock

[Finrock]

What is not up to rational debate is that the one and only reason that the confederate states wanted to quit was to promote Slavery, that Slavery was enshrined in their constitution, and that after deciding to secede, they started shooting!

So one point that you are asserting is that everyone must agree (or they are irrational) with your position that the "one and only" reason that the confederate states wanted to quit the union was to promote slavery.

Why is it true that multiple people are currently rationally debating this assertion? I've seen many people provide a multitude of references and research and papers from experts that refute your position that you have asserted above. So far I've only seen where you refer to a single document citing it as a document that supports your assertion, but you haven't provided any references to support your assertion (unless I've missed them somewhere).

What am I missing?

-Finrock

[gclayjr]

Finrock,

Where did you "reference" the Constitution of the Confederacy in support of your position? I don't mean where did you refer to it, but where did you reference it?

Can you support your position without any personal attacks against others? I'm interested in seeing how you support your position. Please plainly assert your position and then please reference your supporting material(s) which sustain or support your position.

I am a bit confused. Are you playing some sort of silly word game about some perceived difference between "referring" versus "referencing", or do you have a real question here?

If you look at an earlier part of this thread, you will see where I actually quoted part of the constitution. It is easily found on the web. I didn't actually provide a link reference, because I thought anybody with a tiny amount of effort and capability could easily find it. However, here it is.


https://usconstitution.net/csa.html

Now I know that we have sparred before, and you often lay awaiting to take perceived shots at me (which is fine by me), but I am confused here. and I am not sure what you are asking.

Maybe you can clarify. Is this some subtlety you are trying to bring out between the meaning of "refer to" versus "referencing", or is there a real question that I can answer for you here?

Regards,

George Clay

[Finrock]

Finrock,

Where did you "reference" the Constitution of the Confederacy in support of your position? I don't mean where did you refer to it, but where did you reference it?

Can you support your position without any personal attacks against others? I'm interested in seeing how you support your position. Please plainly assert your position and then please reference your supporting material(s) which sustain or support your position.

I am a bit confused. Are you playing some sort of silly word game about some perceived difference between "referring" versus "referencing", or do you have a real question here?

If you look at an earlier part of this thread, you will see where I actually quoted part of the constitution. It is easily found on the web. I didn't actually provide a link reference, because I thought anybody with a tiny amount of effort and capability could easily find it. However, here it is.


https://usconstitution.net/csa.html

Now I know that we have sparred before, and you often lay awaiting to take perceived shots at me (which is fine by me), but I am confused here. and I am not sure what you are asking.

Maybe you can clarify. Is this some subtlety you are trying to bring out between the meaning of "refer to" versus "referencing", or is there a real question that I can answer for you here?

Regards,

George Clay

I don't lay awaiting to do anything with anyone on these forums or anywhere else. I'm not here to attack anyone. I'm responding to the content and the substance of your posts.

You made an assertion and I'm asking you for clarification before I form and finalize my conclusion.

You stated that you referenced the Constitution of the Confederacy in this thread in support of your assertion. I saw that you referred (mentioned it) to it but I did not see where you referenced it in support of your position. I may have missed it so I'm asking for you to point it out.

You are making a claim and I want to read your supporting data. I'm assuming that you have or are able to support your assertion.

You've provided a link to the document. What is your main point and which part of the document, specifically, supports your point?

-Finrock

[gclayjr]

Finrock,


I previously gave you

Excerpt from Constitution of the Confederate states of America

Article I Section 9(4)
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed

Since you seem to have problems with simple English, I will explain. Nobody, No state, no county, no village, nobody could write any law or regulation to limit slavery in their region... Talk about an overbearing Federal government, The confederate federal government FORBADE anybody to even put limits on the bondage of our brother humans !!

What more do you want? I gave you the link, I stated which article and which section and which paragraph in the Constitution

I do want to give you a good answer, but I am clueless as to what it is that you can't figure out?

Sorry,

George Clay

[Finrock]

Finrock,


I previously gave you

Excerpt from Constitution of the Confederate states of America

Article I Section 9(4)
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed

Since you seem to have problems with simple English, I will explain. Nobody, No state, no county, no village, nobody could write any law or regulation to limit slavery in their region... Talk about an overbearing Federal government, The confederate federal government FORBADE anybody to even put limits on the bondage of our brother humans !!

What more do you want? I gave you the link, I stated which article and which section and which paragraph in the Constitution

I do want to give you a good answer, but I am clueless as to what it is that you can't figure out?

Sorry,

George Clay

George,

This is only your second reply to my posts on this thread. I've only today posted anything at all. You haven't posted anything to me specifically outside of the last two posts.

I was asking you to point out where you referenced your supporting data because I may have missed it. I didn't see it and before I assumed you didn't provide it, I asked for you to clarify. Its what people do when they want to sincerely engage with other people.

Thanks for providing your reference and your supporting idea for your assertion. I'll now consider them. :))

-Finrock

[ajax]

Lincoln or Lee? What Would Hitler Say?
Excerpt:

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin will be shocked—OMG! kind of shocked—to know that in his Mein Kampf, Hitler “expressed both his support for Lincoln’s war and his unwavering opposition to the cause of states’ rights and political decentralization.”

Hitler vowed that in Germany as well, he and his National Socialists “would eliminate states’ rights altogether,” political decentralization being the greatest obstacle for all dictators.

(Primary sources: http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/me ... /v2c10.htm & https://archive.org/stream/meinkampf035 ... p_djvu.txt )

In a word, Ms. Baldwin, Hitler liked Abe Lincoln’s impetus and for good reason.

Why Do They Hate the South and Its Symbols?
Excerpt:

A comparison is drawn nowadays between two supposedly equivalent evils, the Old South and Nazi Germany. This comparison has entered the oratory of the NAACP and the Black Caucus; it has also has appeared with increasing frequency in social histories that have come from the American historical profession since the Second World War. A bizarre variation on this comparison, and one frequently heard from the American political Left, is between the Holocaust and Southern slavery. First brought up by the historian Stanley Elkins (when I was still an undergraduate), this seemingly unstoppable obscenity is resurrected whenever black politicians demand reparations. Not surprisingly, those who claim that the Holocaust was unique and that comparing it to any other mass murders, particularly those committed by the Communists, is an impermissible outrage have never to my knowledge protested the likening of American slavery or segregation to the ghastliness of Auschwitz.

The benign acceptance of this comparison by would-be Holocaust-custodians has more to do with leftist political alliances than it does with any genuine reaction to Nazi atrocities. At the very least, reason would require us to acknowledge that Southern slave-owners were vitally concerned about preserving their human chattel, even if they sometimes failed to show them due Christian charity and concern. Unlike the Nazis, these slave-owners were not out to exterminate a race of people; nor did Southern theologians and political leaders deny the humanity of those who served them, a point that historians Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese have demonstrated at some length.

[ajax]

Thanks for providing your reference and your supporting idea for your assertion. I'll now consider them. :))

-Finrock

fyi:
https://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtop ... 89#p802957

[Ezra]

Ezra,

So you support 911 backlash due to the prior shady involvement of the usa in foreign affairs?

This makes no sense what so ever, How do you make any such conclusion like this from what I said? You are so immersed in your conspiracy garbage, that you cannot even write a coherent thought.

If you extend my rationale, you could conclude that having been attacked by Arab terrorists on 9-11, they started a war, that we have to respond to.In fact that is true. Unlike Ft. Sumter, where we were clearly attacked by the southern militia, and the Southern states had signed or were going to sign articles of secession, or in the case of Pearl harbor where we were attacked by the empire or Japan, exactly who the terrorists were that were responsible for 9-11 are a bit murkier. This makes it a bit harder to determine who is attacking us, and who must be defeated. That is another argument for another day, but the idea that whatever Nation or Terrorist organization attacked us truly provoked a response is correct.

Regards,

George Clay

What conspiracy theory are you trying to get people convinced of now?

911 was caused by backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands.
It was the USA who shot first so to speak for many years on many different countries on many different occasions. So I'm asking that with your reckoning of the north being justified in going to war with the south due to the south firing frist. Which caused no casualties. Then do you support what the Saudi Arabian the United Arab Emirates , Egypt, and Lebanon Citizens did in the 911 attack? As we did shoot frist so they were justified right?

You see what I'm am asking? You seem to forget that there are lots of different sides and reasons to the story. American was not innocent in the 911 attack. We killed way more innocent people then they did in our retaliation.

Neither side is the good guy in the story.

Same with the north and south in the civil war.

After all Gods people had been removed to Utah.

[Finrock]

Excerpt from Constitution of the Confederate states of America

Article I Section 9(4)
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed

Since you seem to have problems with simple English, I will explain. Nobody, No state, no county, no village, nobody could write any law or regulation to limit slavery in their region... Talk about an overbearing Federal government, The confederate federal government FORBADE anybody to even put limits on the bondage of our brother humans !!

This section says that you can't make owning slaves illegal or you can't prevent people from owning slaves. You said that slavery was enshrined in their constitution. Clearly slavery is enshrined in their constitution.

However, you also asserted that the "one and only" reason why the South wanted to leave the union was in order to promote slavery. This reference that you have provided hardly supports that assertion. The best that it can do is support that this is one reason why they left the union, however, even this seems to be disputed by historical facts. Lincoln had no interest in preventing the South from practicing slavery and the South wasn't being prevented from practicing slavery prior to them seceding. And, as I recall, the Emancipation Proclamation during the war was used by Lincoln as a tactic to try to win the war and not because he was overly concerned with ending slavery.

-Finrock

[Red]

George,

To refer means to pass someone or something on to another entity or body for consultation. A reference is a literary device used to point the reader to the source of information. You're looking at the root of both words and thinking they mean the same thing. They do have an etymological root in regard to a connection or a link to something else, but in spite of the root, they mean deferent things. I can definitely see where you might think they mean the same thing tho.

[larsenb]

Ezra,

So you support 911 backlash due to the prior shady involvement of the usa in foreign affairs?

This makes no sense what so ever, How do you make any such conclusion like this from what I said? You are so immersed in your conspiracy garbage, that you cannot even write a coherent thought.

If you extend my rationale, you could conclude that having been attacked by Arab terrorists on 9-11, they started a war, that we have to respond to.In fact that is true. Unlike Ft. Sumter, where we were clearly attacked by the southern militia, and the Southern states had signed or were going to sign articles of secession, or in the case of Pearl harbor where we were attacked by the empire or Japan, exactly who the terrorists were that were responsible for 9-11 are a bit murkier. This makes it a bit harder to determine who is attacking us, and who must be defeated. That is another argument for another day, but the idea that whatever Nation or Terrorist organization attacked us truly provoked a response is correct.

Regards,

George Clay

What conspiracy theory are you trying to get people convinced of now?

911 was caused by backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands.

It was the USA who shot first so to speak for many years on many different countries on many different occasions. So I'm asking that with your reckoning of the north being justified in going to war with the south due to the south firing frist. Which caused no casualties. Then do you support what the Saudi Arabian the United Arab Emirates , Egypt, and Lebanon Citizens did in the 911 attack? As we did shoot frist so they were justified right?

You see what I'm am asking? You seem to forget that there are lots of different sides and reasons to the story. American was not innocent in the 911 attack. We killed way more innocent people then they did in our retaliation.

Neither side is the good guy in the story.

Same with the north and south in the civil war.

After all Gods people had been removed to Utah.

I would regard 9/11 being "caused by a backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands", as certainly a superficial argument for the cause of 9/11.

However, the fact that the official story regarding the actual collapse of the 3 WTC buildings is incorrect and/or does not go far enough in explaining the actual collapses, is solid evidence that Saudi Arabian, United Arab Emirate, Egyptian and Lebanese citizens having much or anything to do with the attacks, is woefully inadequate.

[gclayjr]

Ezra,

What conspiracy theory are you trying to get people convinced of now?

911 was caused by backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands.
It was the USA who shot first so to speak for many years on many different countries on many different occasions. So I'm asking that with your reckoning of the north being justified in going to war with the south due to the south firing frist. Which caused no casualties. Then do you support what the Saudi Arabian the United Arab Emirates , Egypt, and Lebanon Citizens did in the 911 attack? As we did shoot frist so they were justified right?

And Japan bombed us because of our imperialist denial of fair trade
,
And if those Jews had not sold out Germany in WW1 and the bankers not abused the common man, then Hitler would not have had to kill them

This line of thinking has no end

You ask a question, answer your own question and prove that you are incapable of understanding a coherent answer to your own analogy.

I think it is best to leave you to your own fevered fantasies. However, even if someone buys your ridiculous assertions, it does nothing to refute the fact that the gripes that the south had, reasonable not, had to do with slavery, pure and simple!

Regards,

George Clay

[larsenb]

Ezra,

What conspiracy theory are you trying to get people convinced of now?

911 was caused by backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands.
It was the USA who shot first so to speak for many years on many different countries on many different occasions. So I'm asking that with your reckoning of the north being justified in going to war with the south due to the south firing frist. Which caused no casualties. Then do you support what the Saudi Arabian the United Arab Emirates , Egypt, and Lebanon Citizens did in the 911 attack? As we did shoot frist so they were justified right?

And Japan bombed us because of our imperialist denial of fair trade
,
And if those Jews had not sold out Germany in WW1 and the bankers not abused the common man, then Hitler would not have had to kill them

This line of thinking has no end

You ask a question, answer your own question and prove that you are incapable of understanding a coherent answer to your own analogy.

I think it is best to leave you to your own fevered fantasies. However, even if someone buys your ridiculous assertions, it does nothing to refute the fact that the gripes that the south had, reasonable not, had to do with slavery, pure and simple!

Regards,

George Clay

Not the fact that I care that much, but I don't see that you've removed or refuted the tariff question as one "the gripes the south had".

[gclayjr]

Larsenb,

Not the fact that I care that much, but I don't see that you've removed or refuted the tariff question as one "the gripes the south had"

I will prove my point, even though you say you don't care.

the following is a link to the various southern states' actual declarations of reasons for secession. Why don't you actually show enough intellectual character to link to it, and first search those very declarations for the word slave, then search again for the word tariff.

Of course all you Southern apologists declare that YOU are the ones who are historically correct, and that the well documented actual cause is a figment of Lincoln lovers' fevered imaginations. The fact is, that all of your documentation is based upon your supposed experts whining about what they want to believe shoulda, coulda oughta have been, rather than what real historically accurate documentation actually shows!

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary- ... ing-states

Regards,

George Clay

[harakim]

.

[harakim]

Larsenb,

Not the fact that I care that much, but I don't see that you've removed or refuted the tariff question as one "the gripes the south had"

I will prove my point, even though you say you don't care.

the following is a link to the various southern states' actual declarations of reasons for secession. Why don't you actually show enough intellectual character to link to it, and first search those very declarations for the word slave, then search again for the word tariff.

Of course all you Southern apologists declare that YOU are the ones who are historically correct, and that the well documented actual cause is a figment of Lincoln lovers' fevered imaginations. The fact is, that all of your documentation is based upon your supposed experts whining about what they want to believe shoulda, coulda oughta have been, rather than what real historically accurate documentation actually shows!

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary- ... ing-states

Regards,

George Clay

Thanks for posting an article that proves the point you are arguing against. Now please read it yourself.

[David13]

Larsenb,

Not the fact that I care that much, but I don't see that you've removed or refuted the tariff question as one "the gripes the south had"

I will prove my point, even though you say you don't care.

the following is a link to the various southern states' actual declarations of reasons for secession. Why don't you actually show enough intellectual character to link to it, and first search those very declarations for the word slave, then search again for the word tariff.

Of course all you Southern apologists declare that YOU are the ones who are historically correct, and that the well documented actual cause is a figment of Lincoln lovers' fevered imaginations. The fact is, that all of your documentation is based upon your supposed experts whining about what they want to believe shoulda, coulda oughta have been, rather than what real historically accurate documentation actually shows!

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary- ... ing-states

Regards,

George Clay

You know, George, it was the immoral Slip Mahoney who used to say "don't jump to seclusions". And that's what you have done here.
First, none of us are southern apologists.
Not all of us are southern, and the south really had nothing to apologize for.
You are jumping to seclusions in that you are painting this extreme position for us truth lovers. That isn't the case. We just want to dispel the myth that the north was this moral hoity toit when it wasn't.


Second, and most imporant NONE OF US SAID, NOR I THINK BELIEVES that the issue of slavery was not a part of the causes and issues of the civil war. Indeed it was. IT WAS NOT THE FIRST AND FOREMOST CAUSE. It was way down at number 11.

A number of posters have been discussing and bantering around the true first and foremost causes, gripes and grievances that led the south to secede.

I understand that you have fallen victim to the revisionists agenda that it was first and foremost all about slavery, a war to free the slaves, no other issues. That isn't the case. What did Lincoln say? Did he say "Oh, this is all about slavery?" No, read up on it, buff fashion, he said much to the contrary.

What statement did he make when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation? Even the buffs know that one.

In the meantime, don't paint us into opposition corners. We are not painting you in a separate corner. Just asking you to look a little deeper into all the other issues.
dc

[Ezra]

Ezra,

So you support 911 backlash due to the prior shady involvement of the usa in foreign affairs?

This makes no sense what so ever, How do you make any such conclusion like this from what I said? You are so immersed in your conspiracy garbage, that you cannot even write a coherent thought.

If you extend my rationale, you could conclude that having been attacked by Arab terrorists on 9-11, they started a war, that we have to respond to.In fact that is true. Unlike Ft. Sumter, where we were clearly attacked by the southern militia, and the Southern states had signed or were going to sign articles of secession, or in the case of Pearl harbor where we were attacked by the empire or Japan, exactly who the terrorists were that were responsible for 9-11 are a bit murkier. This makes it a bit harder to determine who is attacking us, and who must be defeated. That is another argument for another day, but the idea that whatever Nation or Terrorist organization attacked us truly provoked a response is correct.

Regards,

George Clay

What conspiracy theory are you trying to get people convinced of now?

911 was caused by backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands.

It was the USA who shot first so to speak for many years on many different countries on many different occasions. So I'm asking that with your reckoning of the north being justified in going to war with the south due to the south firing frist. Which caused no casualties. Then do you support what the Saudi Arabian the United Arab Emirates , Egypt, and Lebanon Citizens did in the 911 attack? As we did shoot frist so they were justified right?

You see what I'm am asking? You seem to forget that there are lots of different sides and reasons to the story. American was not innocent in the 911 attack. We killed way more innocent people then they did in our retaliation.

Neither side is the good guy in the story.

Same with the north and south in the civil war.

After all Gods people had been removed to Utah.

I would regard 9/11 being "caused by a backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands", as certainly a superficial argument for the cause of 9/11.

However, the fact that the official story regarding the actual collapse of the 3 WTC buildings is incorrect and/or does not go far enough in explaining the actual collapses, is solid evidence that Saudi Arabian, United Arab Emirate, Egyptian and Lebanese citizens having much or anything to do with the attacks, is woefully inadequate.

I agree I think there is more evidence pointing to it being an inside job. But I was a good example for the point I was trying to make.

[ajax]

[Ezra]

Ezra,

What conspiracy theory are you trying to get people convinced of now?

911 was caused by backlash from USA involvement in foreign lands.
It was the USA who shot first so to speak for many years on many different countries on many different occasions. So I'm asking that with your reckoning of the north being justified in going to war with the south due to the south firing frist. Which caused no casualties. Then do you support what the Saudi Arabian the United Arab Emirates , Egypt, and Lebanon Citizens did in the 911 attack? As we did shoot frist so they were justified right?

And Japan bombed us because of our imperialist denial of fair trade
,
And if those Jews had not sold out Germany in WW1 and the bankers not abused the common man, then Hitler would not have had to kill them

This line of thinking has no end

You ask a question, answer your own question and prove that you are incapable of understanding a coherent answer to your own analogy.

I think it is best to leave you to your own fevered fantasies. However, even if someone buys your ridiculous assertions, it does nothing to refute the fact that the gripes that the south had, reasonable not, had to do with slavery, pure and simple!

Regards,

George Clay

Seriously how do you come up with this stuff George.

My point has been which you continue to ignore. that neither side is right neither side was gods side. North and south were both wicked. The lords people were in Utah.

You keep glorifying the north and Lincoln as some savior when they were wicked. You keep ignoring the ungodly actions of them. People here are simply trying to get you to open your eyes. But you just keep justifying the wicked actions of the north.

[ajax]

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog ... h-seceded/

The importance of economic grievances was also stressed in the Address of the People of South Carolina. Comparing the position of the South to that of the American colonists in 1776, the Address stated:

The Government of the United States is no longer a Government of Confederated Republics…it is no longer a free Government, but a despotism. It is, in fact, such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years’ struggle for independence…The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament…and the people of the Southern States are compelled to meet the very despotism their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776…

They [the Southern states] are a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust taxation…For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States, have been laid out with a view of subserving the interests of the North…to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the production of their mines and manufactures…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…

In an article entitled “The Morrill Tariff,” published in All the Year Round (Charles Dickens’ magazine), there was this observation in 1861:

Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as many many other evils…the quarrel between the North and South is, as is stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.

In late 1860, the Morrill Tariff was working its way through Congress, and just such a protectionist tariff had been a key plank in the Republican platform of that year. It would raise the tariff rate to close to 40 per cent (later even higher) and greatly expand the list of taxed items. Clement Vallandigham, an Ohio Congressman who was eventually arrested and deported from the United States because of his speeches in opposition to the policies of the Lincoln administration, gave a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 10, 1861, stating that the Morrill Tariff was the principal cause of Lincoln’s decision to go to war against the seceding Southern states:

One of the last and worst acts of a Congress which, born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion…was the passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective tariff act, commonly known as “THE MORRILL TARIFF.” Just about the same time, the Confederate Congress, at Montgomery, adopted our old tariff of 1857…fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty percent lower than ours. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce…began to look to the South….

Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the [Morrill] tariff…New England—and Pennsylvania, too, the land of Penn, cradled in peace—demanded, now, coercion and civil war, with all its horrors, as the price of preserving either from destruction…The subjugation of the South—ay, sir, the subjugation of the South!…was deliberately resolved upon by the East. And sir, when once this policy was begun, these self-same motives of waning commerce, and threatened loss of trade, impelled the great city of New York, and her merchants and her politicians and her press—with here and there an honorable exception—to place herself in the very front rank among the worshippers of Moloch…

These, sir, were the chief causes which, along with others…forced us, headlong, into civil war, with all its accumulated horrors.

[ajax]

The One Word Answer: Slavery
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog ... r-slavery/

“What caused the Civil War?” Ever since the close of the conflict, historians have been struggling with this crucial question. Given the profound consequences of the war, asking “how?” and “why?” are worthy endeavors. Lately, however, the cause of the War of Southern Independence has been distilled down into a single word: slavery. Ideology has deposed understanding.

This notion that the question of “what caused the Civil War?” must have a one-word answer is extraordinarily simplistic. History is a complex tapestry full of individual threads, all of which contribute to a grand design. By reducing the answer to a single word, scholars with an appreciation for complexity are drowned out by ideologues with an axe to grind. For example, in one episode of “The Simpsons,” an immigrant taking his citizenship test is asked what caused the so-called Civil War. “Actually,” he answers, “aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter-” At this point, the official interrupts. “Just say slavery.”

This one-word mania is also a transparent double standard: no other historical event of similar significance is treated so crudely. Imagine trying to give a one-word answer to “what caused the decline and fall of the Roman Empire?” or “what caused World War I?” Such an answer would be unthinkable, and rightly dismissed as shallow and oversimplified, yet when it comes to the most momentous event in American history since the American Revolution, it must be one word, and that word must be slavery.

Unlike other questions of history, which may be respectfully and cordially debated among gentlemen – e.g. “Was it taxation without representation or the closing of the frontier which motivated Americans to secede from the British Empire?” – this question has a doctrinaire answer which is strictly enforced. Any who dissent from the sola slavery dogma are exiled as heretics. The public – at least the dwindling fraction of those who still read – is instructed to ignore the “neo-Confederates” roving about the wilderness. Unfortunately, this is what passes for history today.

If a one-word answer must be given, then it must be in the broadest terms possible. “What caused the Civil War?” Obviously, the sectional conflict between the North and the South. This conflict, however, was rooted in divergent cultures, spanned several generations, and encompassed a host of outer issues and underlying principles. To be sure, slavery was a major part of the sectional conflict – although as Jefferson Davis claimed, no other subject has been as misrepresented or misunderstood – but to insist that slavery is the one-word answer is to pass off a single thread as a tapestry.

It cannot be stressed enough – indeed, this is a basic point lost on almost all of the so-called experts – that secession is an act of peace, not an act of war. The Declaration of Independence was not a declaration of war. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776, secession is simply the dissolution of political bonds between people. If anything, secession allows two sides to avoid bloodshed and settle their differences civilly. Indeed, in his First Inaugural Address, President Jefferson Davis claimed that the South was “moved by no interest or passion to invade the rights of others, anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations.” According to Davis, “The separation of the Confederate States has been marked by no aggression upon others.” By contrast, in Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural, he decried secession as “anarchy,” and threatened any States which resisted federal authority with “force,” “invasion,” and “bloodshed.” Interestingly, Lincoln also reiterated that he had no intention to interfere with slavery and endorsed a constitutional amendment for slavery’s permanent protection.

It was Lincoln who refused to meet with the Confederate commissioners sent to Washington, D.C. to negotiate the South’s parting obligations to the Union. It was Lincoln who, refusing to recognize the Confederacy, had his Secretary of State string the commissioners along for a month, treacherously telling lies while he orchestrated a crisis at Fort Sumter. It was Lincoln who circumvented Congress by unilaterally declaring war on the Confederacy, driving an outraged Upper South out of the Union in the process. It was Lincoln who repeatedly disavowed that he was waging war against slavery, and stressed “the Union,” “the government,” and “the flag.” It was Lincoln who, when he did settle on an “emancipation policy,” referred to it as a “practical war measure” and “means” for the “suppression of the rebellion.” These are the facts to keep in mind when asking “what caused the Civil War.”

The War of Southern Independence, as with all history, is a tapestry of many threads, each of which deserves to be studied.

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Was the Civil War About Slavery?
"Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, and North Carolina departed from the union only after Lincoln resupplied Fort Sumter and pledged to raise an army of 75,000, while Congress was not in session, with the express purpose of invading other states."

Hmmm, I wonder if the calling up 75,000 troops to invade the South pushed Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia and North Carolina to secede. The voluntary Union was now becoming compulsory. Perhaps that pushed them over the top.

Regardless of causes, they were exercising their sovereignty as original states, i.e. political societies.

The creation of the states, the general government, was never intended to dictate to the creators, the states. As mentioned before, several states expressly mentioned in their ratifying conventions, the right to withdraw.

If the southern states had stayed in the Union, they still would have remained slave states. Lincoln in his first inaugural stated he had no desire to interfere where it existed. Under this light, it makes no sense that slavery was the sole reason. They simply wanted to exercise self-determination and self govern, in what was becoming two distinct regional societies, with neither wanting to be dictated to by the other. Peaceful secession offered a reasonable solution.

There was also the theoretical issue of the compact theory (the founders vision) vs the nationalist theory (propounded most famously by Webster and accepted by Lincoln): the compact theory holds that the Union was created by the sovereign peoples of the states. The nationalist view, by contrast, holds that the Union was created by a singular “people”; from there comes the inevitable conclusion that the Union is indestructible, nullification is unthinkable, etc.