You mean Charles Sumner? :) Understandable mistake, though, and beyond that I agree with everything you’ve said.

Oh, and Bill? For a society that was allegedly on the edge of willingly dumping slavery, it’s surprising that in the years leading up to the war that increasingly strict laws were passed in order to solidify slavery’s standing and that it was in fact illegal in many slave states to publicly speak in favor of abolition or to sent abolitionist materials through the mail. And it wasn’t over tariffs that Preston Brooks nearly beat Edwin Sumner to death with a cane on the Senate floor.

Individuals may have an inherent right to secede….states do not.

I like that.

States don’t have rights, people do.

Where there wrongs committed on both sides? Absolutely. Was Lincoln right in launching his war? No. If the premise of a free country and voluntary association is what we are talking about under the Constitution, then any State has a right leave at any time. There are States that feel this way today, with Arizona the most recent(2004) to pass a resolution seceding from the union if Congress voids the Constitution, confiscates firearms or tries to impose martial law.

Keep drinking that fed gov koolaid, but remember the history books are written by the victors. I was raised in IL, so I was well indoctrinated to be a Lincoln idolater. It was only with much effort on my part to do the research to get a better picture of the real story and a sad story it is indeed on the part of the north as well as the south.

And even the dissenting opinion in the Prize Cases of 1862 described the south’s action as rebellion. This would be the dissenting opinion of among others, Chief Justice Roger Taney, btw.

So yes, by all means, let’s read some history. Let’s read the Declaration of Causes that the various seceding states issued. Let’s read Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone Speech”. Let’s read about voter fraud in Kansas, and about the filibusters.

And Bill, there is no way on God’s Green Earth that slavery would have ended pre-1900. The social pressures to keep it intact would have been far too great for it to end any sooner.

You can’t use an analogy centered on two separate and distinct individuals and apply it to a case of two separate governments with responsibility for millions of individuals. To do so denies the individual rights of those millions in favor of the preferences of a territorial majority.

This analogy pretty sums up the “civil” war:

Had a girlfriend once. For years we associated voluntarily, one with the other. I kept my stuff at her home, and built a nifty walk-in closet for myself outside the master bedroom. Normal relationship bumps were weathered well enough, but there came a time when she wished to be away from me. She asked me to move out, offering to pay for the physical improvements I’d made to her house. I refused to leave. Perhaps I was more belligerent than some, but you must understand that I wanted foremost to keep the relationship intact.

Eventually, after my steadfast denial of her requests that I leave her home, she pulled a gun on me. I grabbed it, knocked her to the floor, pointed the barrel at her head, and raped her. I then moved into her house permanently. It was my duty to preserve the union, and this I did wholeheartedly and without quarter, for her treason was not to be endured by an honorable man.

As for the old canard that slavery would have died on its own, I would note that even when staring the likelihood of forced emancipation in the face, the border slave states that did not secede refused to even consider the possibility of compensated emancipation when it was raised by Lincoln in (IIRC) 1862. Not to mention the violence in Bleeding Kansas between pro and anti-slavery groups, and the fact that some filibusters (the people, not the act of long-winded speaking to delay an action) were expressly off on missions to secure new territory for the expansion of slavery (like Cuba).