Another argument for the Unionist position was that the Constitution was ratified by "We the People," rather than the states, and thereby the states were bound to the will of the whole people, southern and northern. Did Northerners have a say in Southern secession?
CAnnoneer,
With all due respect to Ayn Rand, your definition of statism is unworkable for at least two reasons. First, because no one else uses the term in that way. Secondly, because "The State," in America, consists of all levels of government from the national to the local. If national abolition is statism, then so would be local or state-level abolition. I would agree, however, that too much control of the states by the national government contributes to statism. You may notice that I refer to the national rather than the federal government. This is because "federal government" precisely refers to the relationship between the state governments and national, or central, government.
Take 100 schoolchildren across the nation and ask them what the War was primarily about. The majority will recite the PC line that it was all about slavery and the South were evil, so they deserved to lose. Their multiculturalist liberal teachers are to receive the "thank you" fruitbasket.
I won't deny that is the popular view. Slavery is the most obvious difference between North and South, and has always been the most easily identifiable cause for the Civil War. Ask a bunch of 8-year olds, and they'll say slavery. Ask a random sample of Americans, and they will give any number of answers, but slavery will still be prominent among them. This is so not because of PC, but in spite of it. There's nothing PC about saying that the White, Christian, capitalist, patriarchal North engaged in a noble, self-sacrificing struggle to free slaves from oppression. The PC way to teach the Civil War is to emphasize the economic argument to make both sides look self-serving, and also to emphasize the racism of Northerners from Know-Nothing Party members to Abraham Lincoln. The states' rights/national sovereignty angle also comes in, partly as a way to make the North look bad. That there were other angles to the Civil War is common knowledge.
I remember some years back an economics paper appeared that crunched some numbers and had conclusions indicating that the Southern economy could have been viable. The furor, hatred, and recriminations it generated nationally were more spectacular than 4th July fireworks. "If slavery was so non-viable, why is it that northerners were so damn afraid of it? After all, they could have fomented dissolution if not legislated abolition just by driving slave-run enterprises out of business by honest competition, couldn't they?" My suspicion is that in certain fields, slavery was more than competitive if managed well. And that is a hard-reality pill many people would find impossible to swallow...
What are you talking about? Your memory must be fuzzy. No one is going to be offended by the idea that the Southern economy was "viable." Don't you know that leftists prefer to equate profit with evil and oppresion? To repeat myself, Northerners feared that slavery, being viable largely because of its economy (cheap labor that could be worked as many hours as necessary at little additional cost), would spread into the west, ruining the land of opportunity for small farmers from north and south.
Anyone who thinks that Northerners weren't deeply interested in the question of slavery has not done their homework in the opinions expressed at the time, by the people or the politicians.
I have not argued otherwise. But, let's make a distinction between what the rank-and-file commoners had as motivations, and what was the motivation of the State and its minions and useful idiots.
I said the people or the politicians. Let's not pretend that the interests of either group were mutually exclusive. The politicians couldn't completely ignore the desires of their constituents. While there was a fear of or moral disproval of slavery among many Northeners, there was also an abolitionist element among Lincoln's cabinet. Seward and Chase, as examples off the top of my head. That is to say that some of the Republican leadership was more radically, morally anti-slavery than the base.
Lincoln had plenty of time and warning to get out of Dodge. The confederates made multiple attempts to get the garrisons out peacefully. They asked for surrender, they blockaded, they waited. Sumter needed provisions and Lincoln ordered the resupply ship to run the blockade to force the issue. IIRC the commandant had asked for instructions and help and had been told to stay put.
How do you have all these details, yet lack a general knowledge of the situation? That's why I asked who gave you all these opinions. Again, you're assuming the Southern position, rather than arguing from truths on which we can both agree. Worse, you're expecting that Lincoln would act according to one point of view, when he obviously did not hold that point of view. You think Lincoln just accidently failed to recall his garrisons? From Lincoln's point of view, and that of many observers, he was dealing with a munity.
I wish I were at Antietam at the Lincoln visit to ask him "Happy now, biiyatch?"
Why are you talking like a twelve-year-old?