Was War Necessary After Secession?

[bill_torrens]

I am grateful to both Tommy & Shane for their encouragement to participate in this forum. But I intend to cling to that "Dumb Limey" defence!

If the Americans in 1776 committed treason against Britain and the Confederates in 1861 committed treason against the United States then that means that the South committed treason against...traitors. I'm being frivolous: my point is that these terms are intrinsically meaningless, since a freedom fighter is a traitor or rebel who wins and a traitor or rebel is a freedom fighter who loses.

(Incidentally, it's an interesting question as to what punishments would have been handed out to American Revolutionaries if they had lost the war. It's not my subject, so I can't venture a considered opinion. But I do know that there was a substantial lobby of opinion in England (and in Parliament) which was in open sympathy with the colonists and which even celebrated American victories. I'm not sure that draconian penalties would or could have been inflicted.)

I'm not remotely insulted by your curiosity concerning British interest in the WBTS. It does require explanation, but it's an involved subject which doesn't permit a simple and short analysis. One element was the enduring interest felt in Britain about the democratic experiment being carried out by people of British stock over the Atlantic. And bear in mind that during this period there was substantial emigration from the British Isles to America, so many families had relatives involved. Part of it was a desire, in certain quarters, to see the failure of this American "mobocracy". And the war clearly had an economic impact on areas involved in the cotton trade. Yet another factor was the deep-seated British hostility to the institution of slavery. And you also have to bear in mind that, since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the only military conflicts on this continent had been relatively minor affairs, so there was a great deal of technical or professional interest in this newest of conflicts.

As an example of the degree of interest felt in the war as it unfolded, consider the coverage which it received in local newspapers, much less the national ones. The town in which I work was a modest market town in the 1860s. It boasted two newspapers: the politically conservative one was vociferous in its support for the Confederacy whilst the other, which was radical/liberal, was passionately pro-Northern. Pretty much every issue of both papers in 1861-1865 contained news and - frequently - editorials about the American conflict.

Interest in the subject after 1865 is perhaps harder to explain. Part of the answer would be that American TV programmes and films have been an ever present part of our culture for over half a century. And another factor is that civil wars (and I'm using the term very loosely - being of Southern proclivities) are inherently more interesting than wars between different nations. And yet another factor is that the WBTS was the most prolifically photographed episode of the 19th century....there is an enduring fascination in those images.

But I think your friend may be overstating things to claim that there is more interest in the American Civil War than in the English one. There are many groups here who are passionately interested in the events of the 17th century.

[hawglips]

Neil: "When I said I agreed with Lincoln when he said that it was slavery that was the ONE subject, the ONE issue that caused such strife and agitation between the North and the South and that it was the ONLY issue that came between them with such force."

Are you referring to Lincoln's view that:
"One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute."

If so, you left out half the equation in your comment. I was never a math whiz but I do know that it is very difficult for one to arrive at the correct answer if half of the equation is left unconsidered.

Or are you saying the Lincoln's reasoning for forcing union on the Deep South was to combat slavery? If you are, please share this new information with me.

Neil: "Slavery caused the South to leave the Union. THE NORTH WENT TO WAR TO PRESERVE THE UNION.... Slavery was THE spark, THE cause, THE reason for the South leaving the Union and the cause of the war."

Who exactly is "the South" of whom you speak? The slave States? The Upper South? The Border States? The Cotton States? I know you are much too knowledgeable as to equate "the South" with "the slave States" in this usage, so I must assume you mean something other than "the slave States" or even "the slave States that seceded," since "the South" did not leave the Union in its entirety, and only a minority of those States actually left it prior to the commencement of a shooting war.

Please clarify, if you don't mind so that I can agree or disagree with you on this.

How was slavery "THE spark" and "THE cause" for going to war? I thought that was Ft. Sumter? Did Maj. Anderson make a raid into Charleston and haul chattel back to Sumter in order for the Fox Expedition to arrive and carry the rescued slaves to freedom up in Canada? Or can we now forget about Sumter as having anything to do with the commencement of the war?

I thought the war started at the little fort in Charleston's harbor because Union troops wouldn't leave SC territory and SC insisted on their independence from the union? Do you know something that I don't know about slaves Anderson must have been holding in there who were waiting for the "supply" ships to carry them to Quebec or something of that sort? Is that why he refused to leave and refused to agree not to fire on SC? Was he planning more slave liberating raids? Is that why SC fired on his gallant men? If so, then it finally makes sense to me!

But how do you figure that "the North went to war to preserve the union?" I thought they went to war because the South fired on Sumter!? Or are you considering Lincoln's statement that he would invade the Deep South if they did not allow him to collect the import duties and to occupy federal facilities as the commencement of the North's war "to preserve the union"?

This relation between slavery and forcing union is getting confusing to a simple man like me.

Hal

[hawglips]

Mr. Torrens, though a lowly private here, I too would like to welcome your comments.

My mother recently returned from an 18 month stay in Manchester and happened upon a gentleman there who was a CSA reenactor, and had an uncanny resemblance to none other than Robert E. Lee. His views on the WBTS were decidedly Southern leaning to boot.

I am reminded that the views of many from the Mother Country at that time were somewhat sympathetic to the cause of Southern independence. I have always found it quite ironic that that was the case. One might expect those who won their own independence on the grounds of self-governance would not wage a war to deny that same right to others.

And I share your bemusement concerning the Gettysburg Address, and the irony of the concept that fighting a war to deny self-governance somehow saved the very thing it was fighting against, i.e., “government of the people, by the people, for the people."

Your observations seem similar to those of other British citizens during the time of our Union's crisis:

“It does seem the most monstrous of anomalies that a government founded on the ‘sacred right of insurrection’ should pretend to treat as traitors and rebels six or seven million people who withdrew from the Union, and merely asked to be left alone.” (Quarterly Review)

And the naked imperialism was quite apparent to those from whom we had wrested our own liberty a few short decades earlier.

London Times: "If Northerners… had peaceably allowed the seceders to depart, the result might fairly have been quoted as illustrating the advantages of Democracy; but when Republicans put empire above liberty, and resorted to political oppression and war rather than suffer any abatement of national power, it was clear that nature at Washington was precisely the same nature as at St. Petersburg. … Democracy broke down, not when the Union ceased to be agreeable to all its constituent states, but when it was upheld, like any other Empire, by force of arms."

Hal

[thea_447]

Neil,
In my post of Jan 8, 5:17 p.m.,
please re-read what I said. I did not accuse you of about-facing with the South. I was suggesting that you now had changed your opinion that LINCOLN didn't go to war to set the slaves free. If indeed, in Lincoln's mind slavery was the "only subject of agitation", why did he not state this in his first address upon entering the field of war. Why? Because he could not afford to alienate the slave holding states still within the Union. How hypocritical. And you know that those slaves were not freed until many months after the war's end.

As to Ft. Sumter: Lincoln had promised that he was not planning on reprovisioning Ft. Sumter, which had almost run out of food, oil, and other provisions. He lied! He sent,as you well know, a naval force ostensibly to reprovision the fort. But,he sent the provisions, accompanied by heavily armed battleships.(If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ..) Historian Bruce Catton explains how Lincoln maneuvered Jefferson Davis into firing the first shot:

Lincoln had been plainly warned by (his military advisers) that a ship taking provisions to Ft. Sumter would be fired on. Now he was sending the ship, with advance notice to the men who had the guns. He was sending war ships and soldiers as well...If there was going to be a war it would begin over a boat load of salt pork and crackers...Not for nothing did Captain Fox remark afterward that it seemed very important to Lincoln that South Carolina "should stand before the civilized world as having fired upon bread."

Shelby Foote, author of "The Civil War" concurred, writing that, "Lincoln had maneuvered the Confederates into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war. What was worse, in the eyes of the world, that first shot would be fired for the immediate purpose of keeping food from hungry men."

Quite a few Northern newspapers recognized that Lincoln wanted a war and that he had maneuvered the South into firing the first shot. On April 16, 1861, the Buffalo Daily Courier editorialized that "The affair at Fort Sumter ... has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified." (With his flair for prose and innate P.R. inclinations, Lincoln would have been the J.R. Ewing of the contemporary Advertising world!)

I have always been proud to be an American, Neil, and I certainly recognized when traveling overseas what it meant to be one! However, I also love the history of the Confederacy with an abounding sense of duty to see that others do not get the distorted version of our history that's jammed into the three-four paragraphs of American history in Junior or Senior High School. As Frank Owsley,warned, in 1930, the North is attempting to imprint its views upon the minds of Southern youth, and warned of textbooks designed to give Southerners a proper education in Northern traditions and at the same time label the Southern cause as evil or unrighteous. This is a gross misconception still in practice today. Unfortunately so little time is spent on the WBTS that most students don't even recognize when this war was fought, or who the major players were. Their indoctrination is just this: The evil South had slaves and the North fought a war to stop slavery. Yea, North! And with every Bubba joke that is passed across the internet, the indoctrination of Southern stupidity expands. Southerners will further distance themselves from people with this kind of mentality. It's not enough for the "N word" to be politically incorrect, people in general should have the fortitude to stand up and say this low humor is unacceptable!

In my opinion, the cause of the Southern Confederacy was not the lost cause. It was a noble cause: State sovereignty, constitutional government with limited federal powers. These were the same causes that the original union sought independence from, a growing centralized government that violated their rights and intruded into the affairs of sovereign States.

If the South had wanted to maintain slavery the most logical position would be to remain in the Union. The Constitution, and the Supreme Court,supported slavery. That process would have taken years, at no loss of life and little economic and financial loss. But the Yankees forced an untenable position with their thirst for more money, more railroads (none being built in the South, I might add. Interestingly enough, those same railroads would be used to great advantage in their invasion of the South.)

George Lunt(as cited in M. Rutherford's Truths of History,1907, pg.12)said: In 1833 there was a surplus revenue of many millions in the public treasury which by an act of legislation unparalleled in the history of nations was distributed among the Northern States to be used for local public improvements.

I also add that in President James Buchanan's message to Congress: (Ibid) The South had not had her share of money from the treasury, and unjust discrimination had been made against her..

So you can see these feelings of discrimination did not spring full-blown in 1860, this had been building for decades.

There is no doubt in my mind that the South felt encroached upon and knew that Lincoln would destroy their livelihood, not by paying them for their slaves and making a tremendous effort to keep Southern economy afloat, but by any means, fair or foul. In the end, every fear of Lincoln became fact.

You've questioned the number of loyal Unionists in the South and how their wishes were quashed. I daresay the same can be said of Southern sentiments in Northern states. In the end the majority overwhelmed those with such ideas. The difference being that in the South it was not done by a rush to martial law, as Lincoln did whenever the thought flashed in his head.

"The conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.." --The Preamble to the Bill of Rights. (Every clause in the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights is a restriction on the government.)

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson, 1816.

I've said this before but will close with this reminder: Secession, as understood by our Confederate forefathers, was not an extra constitutional revolutionary right, but a constitutional right. They wanted to go in peace, to be left alone, and Lincoln chose to make revolution against them.

Tommy, I see you have posted a few things on the boards yesterday and can only hope that this means you are feeling somewhat better. Know that you are greatly missed by this recalcitrant Rebel and others. And Hal: good points, all!

I remain, YMOS,

I would like to point out that in my months in the UK I was called a Yank many times. Too many times to count. I'd say with a smile “I'm not a Yank, I'm from the South.” Not once did I have to explain any more. Without exception they understood and with a grin they were more than happy to call me Reb without my urging.

Thea,
I hope I have not given you false hope. I must admit the recent postings were to let ya’ll know I'm still here and I read ya’ll daily. Many, many times I wish to reply but just cannot focus my limited mental resources or physical energies to do it justice. I’m just doing my best. It is hard to do the adequate research to refute things though. (Especially since it appears Neil has been making lots of trips to the library and got books for Christmas) I do not wish to appear as a pointless spammer. But rest assured, I will come up. Sick leave in my pocket, I will return to the field in times of need.

As always
YMOS
tommy

[unionblue]

Thea,

No, I have not changed my mind that Lincoln went to war with the South over slavery. He did not, in my opinion. He went to war to preserve the Union.

But as Hal has been good enough to point out, Lincoln also stated that slavery was the 'only substantial dispute' in his mind and mine. My contention has been that if there had been no institution of slavery for the country to be up in arms about, there would have been no war.

I have given my opinion on Ft. Sumter. Both sides wanted the other to fire the first shot. Both sides did not want to appear as the aggressor. In deference to Hal, the Deep South, cotton-growing, with slavery as their main interest, fired the first shot of the war to force the conflict and the Border States off the fence and into the arms of the Rebellion. Slavery was the spark, Hal, that lit the fuse that exploded at Ft. Sumter.

There was NO South Carolina territory being occupied by Federal troops, but a fort of the United States on federal property recognized by that State, the law and the Constitution. Except that now that State had to make a show for the rest of the South to prove it was serious about the theory of secession or back down. That is why the first shot was fired by the 'South' in the form of South Carolina.

I find it distressing that you cannot from my posts read my real meanings. Do you think the firing on Ft. Sumter took place in a vacuum, that there was no cause, political or social, that led up to this event? That one fine day a citizen of Charleston said, ' What the hell, let's fire on Ft. Sumter!"

And please Hal, the relation between slavery and 'forcing union' is not confusing to such an intelligent man like you. I would not insult you thus nor presume to think you ignorant in these matters. Your writing and debating style belie that contention. So why presume to ask questions that do not contribute to our debate? 'Did Maj. Anderson make a raid into Charleston and haul chattel back to Sumter,' etc.

Thea, you have it somewhat backwards in my opinion. The South has been attempting to imprint its views upon the minds of the Nation." Its just that research and history are now being shed in a new light, one more in line with historical fact, in my Yankee opinion!

I have my opinion too, of what the Southern 'cause' was. Rebellion. I do not consider that term wrong but I cannot grasp or understand the concept you espouse that this was somehow a 'noble' exercise of sovereign states protecting themselves from a 'growing' central government and preserving their 'rights.' This is not the case when I read history and the words of the men at the time.

I do agree with you if the South had wanted to keep the institution of slavery, it should have remained in the Union. You're are right, the Constitution supported it, the Supreme Court supported it,etc. Again, I say you are right when you say it would have taken years, if not decades, before that institution would have disappeared from the social fabric of this country. No loss of life, no property destroyed and no financial loss. I am in complete agreement. So why did the South leave? Over money not being spent or shared properly in the South? Can you then please, PLEASE explain to me why Mr. Keitt of South Carolina said he would NOT use this argument when the people had come to this separation over the issue of slavery?

And Thea, please, PLEASE read about the military use of railroads in the Civil War and know that the South was the first EVER to employ their use in warfare. There is no evidence of a huge Northern plot to build railroads solely with the sinister purpose of invading the South. If there is, please point me to the book, source, site, etc.

I also do agree with you on one other point.

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." H.G. Wells.

Sincerely,
Unionblue



(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 2004)

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 2004)

[unionblue]

Mr. Torrens,

Sir, it is an absolute delight to have you participate in these debates and discussions! Please feel free to contribute, disagree, debate and offer your insights on the subjects contained on this board. No offence will be taken and none offered.

After reading your above post (Friday, January 09, 2004 - 05:19 am) you raise many and fascinating questions. For instance, your statement concerning 'it is only necessary to demonstrate that the majority of the citizens of the seceding states supported departure from the Union in order to prove the legitimacy of the Confederate States.' In this, do you infer the right of rebellion? Or have I missread your intent or meaning?

I also tend to agree that President Lincoln had the mistaken belief that there was no popular will behind the creation of the Confederacy, but I tend to miss your meaning that secession 'posed no threat' to the nation. In what way to you consider that secession was no threat to the nation in general?

As for your last paragraph, I tend to think otherwise about other reasons the thousands of Union volunteers in 1861 who fought their fellow countrymen in the South. 'Rule of law' might be one. 'The last, best hope of earth' another. And for a 'new birth of freedom' and so that a minority could not overthrow the will of the majority so that 'government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'

And William, there are times when I do not understand some areas of the war either!

Sincerely,
Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 2004)

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 2004)

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 2004)

[thea_447]

This is probably not quite the place for this article but since it involves secession, I thought it would be alright. Feel free to move it to a more appropriate location if you know how to do that. <grin>

James Madison and Secession

http://pub5.bravenet.com/forum/fetch...amp;mode=&amp;

(Message edited by thea_447 on January 10, 2004)

[thea_447]

Suffice it to say for tonight that it's amazing to me that for all the hoopla over what you, Neil, perceive as the South's issue with slavery,you never bring up a very interesting point. Why don't history books point out that while the E.P. supposedly freed slaves where the North no longer had control, it completely excluded from its purview the 450,000 slaves in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri (border slave states that remained within the Union), 275,000 in Union-occupied Tennessee, and tens of thousands more in portions of Louisiana and Virginia under the control of federal armies. I guess "Jubilo" was only reserved for those poor souls in the Confederate States of America.

And Neil, you should not find any of this distressing. We've traveled down this road many times. We just both keep looking for that stone left unturned that will trip the other up! Hmm, ain't happening yet, is it? LOL

As for the railroad situation, Tommy covered that quite well previously, so there's no need for me to argue the same points again.
But I will embellish on my Morrill tariff again, to your chagrin.

The Morrill Tariff was a centerpiece of the Republican Party platform” of 1860,and Lincoln, as the party’s presidential nominee, was expected to enforce it when elected.
Frank Taussig, one of the tariff historians wrote in Tariff History of the United States (p. 158), the Morrill Tariff “was passed, undoubtedly, with the intention of attracting to the Republican Party, at the approaching Presidential election, votes in Pennsylvania and other States that had protectionist leanings.”

Several southern states had already seceded, including South Carolina in December, when it was apparent that the tariff would probably pass the Senate and would be enforced by Lincoln, the career-long protectionist. This made the tariff very important in the eyes of the Southernerners.

Lincoln chose to highlight the tariff in his First Inaugural Address when he stated “The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion – no using force against, or among the people anywhere.” (This waved a big red warning flag: Yo, Southerners! Pay the tariff and we won't come with force of arms to collect it!)

With South Carolina nullifying the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, forcing Andrew Jackson to back down and negotiate a lower tariff rate by 1833, Southern statesmen continued to complain about tariffs. Although, by 1860, the import-dependent South was paying some 80 percent of all tariffs. (Yes, EIGHTY percent!) But by 1857 the United States enjoyed the closest proximity to free trade that would exist in the nineteenth century, with an average tariff rate of around 15 percent.

Then in the 1859-1860 congressional session the House of Representatives passed the Morrill tariff, followed by the Senate in the next session, in early 1861, just before Lincoln’s inauguration. The average rate would soon be elevated to 47.06 percent, according to Frank Taussig.

It gets easy as pie to see Southerners had been complaining bitterly about being plundered by the tariff, paying some 80 percent of it while, in their view, most of the money was being spent in the North. Then the Republican Party gains power and, before anyone expects a war, more than triples the average rate at a time when the tariff was the primary source of federal tax revenue. (This was before income tax.) Then Lincoln makes his First Inaugural Address and says it is his duty to “collect the duties and imposts” (among other things) and, as long as those much higher duties are collected, “there will be no invasion.” (Threat!)

In effect, once in power, Lincoln announced to the South : We're going to make tax slaves out of you by tripling the rate of taxation, and as long as you collect these taxes there will be no military invasion. He wasn't going to back down to the South Carolinian nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson did.

Meanwhile the Confederate Constitution was outlawing protectionist tariffs altogether, which would have caused most of the trade of the world to be diverted from high-tariff Northern ports to lower-tariff Southern ones. Some Northern newspapers affiliated with the Republican Party were openly calling for the bombardment of Southern ports BEFORE Fort Sumter. (The Daily Chicago Times, Dec. 10, 1860: “Let the South adopt the free-trade system,” and the North’s “commerce must be reduced to less than half of what it now is.” The Newark Daily Advertiser ,April 2, 1861,announced: that Southerners had apparently “taken to their bosoms the liberal and popular doctrine of free trade,” which “must operate to the serious disadvantage of the North.” The paper called South Carolina the “chief instigator” of these free-trade doctrines, and called for the “closing of the ports” in the South by military force.

Many historians insist that economics (besides the economics of slavery) had nothing to do with Lincoln’s election and the South’s reaction to it, but not the Lincoln scholar, Pulitzer Prize winning Lincoln biographer David Donald. In his book, Lincoln Reconsidered (p. 106)., Donald quotes U.S. Senator John Sherman, the brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman and a major Republican Party figure in the U.S. Senate during the war, as explaining why Lincoln was elected: “Those who elected Mr. Lincoln,”said Senator Sherman, “expect him . . to secure to free labor its just right to the Territories of the United States; to protect . . by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers . . . ; to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific.”

David Donald seems to be saying that Lincoln and the Republicans intended to enact a high protective tariff "that mothered monopoly, to pass a homestead law that invited speculators to loot the public domain,and to subsidize a transcontinental railroad that afforded infinite opportunities for jobbery. (Somehow this doesn't sound like the flowery "shall not perish from the earth spiel that Lincoln twisted out of the Declaration of Independence.)

That same Senator Sherman also noted that the first goal of the Republican Party was labor market protectionism. When Lincoln said he wanted the territories for free white men to settle, I don't hear the ringing of freedom's bells in there. This was to be for purely economic and political reasons. No grand nobility there.

Carrying Sherman's interpretation further, the basic Republican strategy was to buy votes, and campaign contributions from protectionist manufacturers, mining and timber companies who would get cheap federal land (no matter WHERE it happened to be located)subsidy-seeking railroad corporations and white laborers who certainly didn't want any competition from either slaves or freed blacks.

All of these things are part and parcel of a protectionist President who came into office on the promise that he could deliver the goods.

I believe Lincoln resolved even as he took the oath of office to either quash the secessionists in short order or plunge the entire country into war. I am also certain he thought the South would back down, as they had in the past. Things got out of hand. But it was too late and he was too stubborn to let them leave. Just because his shoulders were stooped doesn't mean he wasn't bull-headed.

Inflammatory rhetoric on both sides was the beginning of a tidal wave that swept the country into war. Some will repeat endlessly that the South reaped the whirlwind but in the end, this country's experiment as a republic died at Appomattox, along with all those brave boys.

One would think that wise heads would learn from history just what happens in war. But unfortunately we have not. Too late they learn that victory is just a word.

And friend Neil, if I have offended you with my words, it was not my intent. I hope that we can always continue the thrust and parry on these boards. It will keep me out of pool halls and bars, I'm sure. LOL

YMOS, the Recalcitrant Thea..

[unionblue]

Dear Thea,

At NO time have you offended me with your words or conclusions or theories at ANY time on this board. We are far past the point of offending one another. Now, as for EXASPERATING me, you have done that often and repeatedly and I suspect with glee in your rebel heart!

To continue the exasperation, Lincoln DID free slaves by his issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which, as we all know, was a Presidential war time measure to inflict damage to the enemy and cause him to doubt the very slaves in his mist. And they were in fact free, were they not, after the war? And we all know through our reading of history and Lincoln's words and actions, that he felt the institution of slavery, wherever it existed legally in the North, had to be addressed by a Constitutional amendment, which it was. Maybe its just the timing you object to while I consider the eventual end result nothing short of astonishing.

What I find distressing is those rather disingenuous observations and questions by Hal which I feel deflect from the issue I am trying to address or discuss and my previously stated reasons on why the war came about. But I feel Hal is used to a certain debating style he is comfortable with and I will just have to see where it leads.

As for Tommy covering the railroad situation and you agreeing with him, its your privilege to do so, but we did not agree or end that argument. I suggest you go back and check that thread. (No offense, Tommy.)

Embellish as you will on the tariff, Morill or otherwise. Just point me to the Southern leader who right before the war he stated this was THE reason for the war. Or better yet, any battle began with the charge and the phrase, "FOR THE TARIFF MEN!" (And yes, now I am being EXASPERATING!)

And doesn't the phrase, 'Many historians insist that economics had nothing to do,' etc. say anything to you? And what book are you referring to that Mr. Donald wrote? I look it up and read it to see exactly where you are coming from.

Until that time, friend Thea, know that you do not offend me, you stubborn rebel pain-in-the-butt, but you definitely exasperate me. But that's the fun part, yeah?

Sincerely,
Unionblue