Slavery was an issue that neatly encapsulated many other determining factors and provided high moral ground. The issue allowed the industrialized Northern States to ignore the law of the land and enact statues in direct conflict with Federal Policy (Fugitive Slave Act) without challenge to the Supreme Court of the United States. This loss of confidence in process and the realization that Southern States were no longer equal partners in the Union gave rise to secessionist movement. That the Constitution did not recognize the rights of the participants to secede is not a point I can agree with. The Northern States sought to maintain the Union for its own economic benefit, not for an ideological struggle. That New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia reserved the right to resume governmental powers granted to the federal government before they would ratify the Constitution, and that this claim to the right of secession was accepted by other ratifiers, stands as evidence that the framers understood the possibility that the Union could be dissolved. The blatant disregard for the Constitution by the Northern States is no where more evident that the illegal creation of the State of West Virginia. Article IV, Section 3-1: Clause 1: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. If the States did not have the right to secede (a right that Virginia specifically reserved), then the creation of West Virginia was and remains illegal. Finally, the fact that Southern leaders were not brought to trial for treason conveniently avoids a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of secession.
No, the Union's disregard of the Southern States standing within the Union was the all encompassing issue. Slavery was the poster child of that disregard. That led to secession. http://www.swcivilwar.com/cw_causes.html Jefferson Davis, at the time a Senator from Mississippi, summed up the sectionalist argument himself. Speaking, in effect, to the people of the North concerning slavery, “It is not humanity that influences you… it is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the Government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement… you want by an unjust system of legislation to promote the industry of the United States at the expense of the people of the South.” There, in plain English, is the shrill, accusatory language of sectionalism. I still stand that the Union did not have Constitutional authority to block secession. That resulted in war.
And what was the difference between northern industry and southern? Slavery. You seem to focus on the technical cause de la guerre and refuse to accept the base disagreement that made the entire notion of secession an issue at all.
If my parachute failed to open you might say I died from internal injuries, I would say it was because of the fall.:thumb: There would have been no war if the North recognized the South's right to secede.
red, you need to take into account that the North had a huge advantage in the house due to population. A balance in the senate was necessary to keep the south from becoming revenue generating colonies of the north. Southern leaders knew they could maintain this balance if an equal number of slave and free states remained. When this balance was lost the southern states elected to secede. The important point to be made was that slavery was in no danger when the southern statess seceded. Few cared about abolition.
Actually, I say you died because the chute failed. The injuries and the fall are each consequences of the original issue. There would have been no need to seceed if the abolitionist north had accepted slavery.
A lot more than a few cared. Have you forgotten the Dred Scott decision or the John Brown Harper's Ferry incidents? Have you forgotten the decades of Congressional antics regarding the numbers of slave states and free states? The reason the north connived for more free states had nothing to do with making "colonies" out of the slave states. It was because they wanted the Senate votes to eventually abolish slavery. I've agreed all along that secession was the reason that the north went to war. Invading the south was a consequence of secession which itself was a consequence of slavery. I fail to see the resistance a couple of you have to recognize the reason that the south seceeded. They wanted to keep the slaves! Slavery was the root issue. Seccession and war were consequent actions.
