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On a "state" level, as Joe Bob is speaking of, Missouri didn't secede until attacked by the Federal Government of Lincoln. Missouri's executive branch wanted to secede but the legislative would not provide the needed 2/3 majority. The majority of the populace seemed to be southern in origin but with many strong business ties to the emerging industrial revolution of the North. Lincoln's military leaders in Missouri and Kansas were abolitionists and provocateurs. Lincoln demanded 50,000 troops from Missouri to assist in quelling the rebellion. Missouri, while not wanting to leave the Union also did not want to fight against their relatives and friends from Virginia and Kentucky so they adopted armed neutrality as a policy with General Sterling Price, a hero of the Mexican War and former governor, as the commander. Federal troops attacked the Missouri troops! The heavy-handedness of the Federal government caused Missouri to then secede from the Union after the Federal government attacked Jefferson City and forced its evacuation. The Missouri State Guard was not mustered into the Confederate Army until 1862, meaning that the state of Missouri fought the Union until that time.

Thank you for providing actual history to counter the revisionism of other members.

War Department, Washington, April 15, 1861. To His Excellency the Governor of Virginia: Sir: Under the act of Congress for calling forth "militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, repel invasions, etc.," approved February 28, 1795, I have the honor to request your Excellency to cause to be immediately detached from the militia of your State the quota designated in the table below, to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged. Your Excellency will please communicate to me the time, at or about, which your quota will be expected at its rendezvous, as it will be met as soon as practicable by an officer to muster it into the service and pay of the United States.

— Simon Cameron, Secretary of War.



Executive Department, Richmond, Va., April 15, 1861. Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War: Sir: I have received your telegram of the 15th, the genuineness of which I doubted. Since that time I have received your communications mailed the same day, in which I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia "the quota assigned in a table," which you append, "to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged." In reply to this communication, I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object - an object, in my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795 - will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South.

— Respectfully, John Letcher

Therein lies the problem. 150 years from now, people will be quoting Barack Obama and MSNBC.

Is there ANYONE, ANYWHERE that believes:

1) 2 million plus white guys were fighting to free slaves and almost 1/2 million gave their lives for black freedom?

Further, if you want to take "their" words at face value, read Georgia' articles of secession. It goes into a long historical explanation of the roots of the problem.

Georgia was clear that the preservation of slavery, but more importantly the extension of slavery and the possible addition of slave states was important to it and the reason it was seceding. Georgia's wealth, like most of the wealth of the South was tied to slavery and it could not get out of the trap easily.

However, Georgia traced the roots of the crisis in 1860 to tariffs and government subsidies for Northern manufacturing and trading interests. These interests had always gotten what they wanted until the South and the North West stood up to them and finally settled the issue in 1846. There would be no more mercantilism and subsidies for those industries. IT WAS THEN AND ONLY THEN, that these interests threw their money behind the still relatively small abolitionist movement in order to break the power of the South and thus, take control of the government.

Those manufacturing and trade interests knew that if they could break the power of the South, the federal government would pour money into them hand over fists. And if you look at it, that is exactly what happened. Before the Civil War was even over, the biggest government subsidized boondoggle in our history started with the funding of the multiple transcontinental railroads. Sure, they were a boon to commerce, but the graft and corruption in their building has never been equaled. They were making millions per mile in federal funds.

Those pursuits would have had to be privately funded had the South retained its pre-war position in the Union.

No matter that the histories of the war were written either by Northerners or Southerners sympathetic to Northern interests/causes. So IOW, it was all about slavery...lol

Ample evidence of the Tariff being the main reason for the war to anybody who wants to actually look at what the northern politicos were saying in the 1840's and 50's. They could have given a rat's ass about the plight of the black man.

Sounds a lot like today.

Anybody that thinks the Koch's are Libertarians is a fool.

The causes of the Civil War are very much like the turmoil we see today, and there is no way to remove race, liberalism and tradition from the equation. Just as Ferguson, Baltimore, McKinney and Charlotte are combined to reveal a broad rift between factions, so did actions prior to the War. For instance, Northern abolitionists, and slaves, burned almost the entire City of Dallas to the ground on July, 8th 1860 leaving many homeless and destitute...none of which were slave owners. This "protest" was an incentive for every Texan to be pissed, regardless of how they felt about slavery.

It really wasn't very complicated.

Well, damn Pat... You're bringing up things that aren't (can't/won't) be taught in HS history class. Why'd you go do a thing like that?

Same with all those other folks quoting stuff that goes against the fed mandated "educational system"; it can't be true, if it ain't taught in HS history.

Seems rather apparent that there is plenty out there to debunk the "it was only about slavery myth", if one is inclined enough to look, or actually desired the truth. Might be a point there...

Recollections from my grandfather on some of his uncle's were that they never even seen a black person till after the war.

Apparently, subsistence farming and fishing didn't allow them a lot of time to "get out".

It was those post war meetings which drove their previously untainted sentiment...

Well it kinda was all about slavery, just like Ferguson was all about police misconduct and Charlotte is all about a flag.

I think you mean Charleston, Pat.

Nothing except normal B-on-B violence, and illegal immigrants raping folks goes on in Charlotte, NC. (AKA un-newsworthy stuff)

Yeah...that's it. Liberals have caused so much chaos, in so many innocent venues, recently. I get confused trying to remember them.

The daily bombardment will continue, too.

I'm afraid we have not even come close to seeing the worst of it. That's a special surprise...

The government today and the ideas of ordinary Americans are so different today from before the war that it is very difficult for us to even relate to it.

One simple but telling example is that before the Civil War no one ever said that the United States "is", the term was always the United States "are". Obviously, before the war, it was recognized that it wasn't a giant centralized stated, but a collection of equal states.

Before the war, political parties were much less important than the states. The states and their interests formed voting blocks much more than the parties did. Sure, parties had platforms, but those parties were usually regionalized and sectionalized. Today, a Texas Democrat is apt to vote the same as a New York Democrat because of loyalty to party and because they were whipped by that party to vote a certain way. In those days, that wasn't the case. Or rather, it wouldn't have happened that way because a guy from New York and one from Texas were unlikely to share the same party platform because of where they were from.

Thus, slave verses non-slave became the predominant way to separate the voting blocks in the country. So, adding slave or non-slave states without adding one from the other side, altered the balance of power. Once the South figured that slavery was to be excluded from the territories, they understood that they were to be out voted on everything. There was little fear that slavery would be immediately abolished, but like gun owners today, southerners could see the future. When the Democrats of today get an unassailable majority because of demographics, we will have one party rule. Gun control and many other things will become a reality because they will control all the branches of government. There will be no check on their power. The South simply decided to get out of that losing bargain while they still had power to have a fighting chance.

And if you want proof that the war was about much more than slavery, just look at voting patterns today. The South still votes almost uniformly as a block as does New England. And they are almost always on opposite sides of the issue, whatever it is.

National unity has ALWAYS been a myth imposed at the muzzle of a gun.

I still want someone to answer where Lincoln got his constitutional authority to use force to preserve the Union?

Where does the Constitution say the POTUS may do that?



I was so hoping Birdwatcher would answer this for me

executive order

Or, the same unconstitutional authority to "free" private property lawfully owned by American citizens without due compensation...

Or, the unconstitutional authority to have the Maryland legislature and Governor arrested and replaced, and order the guns at Ft. McHenry turned on the CIVILIAN population of Baltimore, essentially placing the entire city under arrest without charge and under threat of death if they were to exercise their First, Second, Third, Fourth, or Fifth Amendment rights...

The entire Constitution is under attack by the very government it is supposed to limit.