Im down to play a little....
Cool.
Okay 2 things. 1) Many in North Alabama fought for the Union because they believed in Andrew Jackson's beliefs about the Union and
True. They also were tied to trade (the two most prolific north Alabama commodities were mules and corn) facilitated by the Tennessee River, which flowed south into Alabama from Tennessee and then flowed back north to Tennessee. Secession placed a tariff barrier between north Alabama farmers and their Tennessee and Kentucky customers.
2) Again you are missing the point of the old saying "Rich Man's war, Poor man's fight"
I'm not really sure what your point is here. Plenty of poor men voted to leave the Union.And plenty of rich men served in the army.
I don't see how anyone with a straight face can say that Slavery wasnt the main political reason that Alabama seceded from the Union.
I do not believe many Republicans were advocating abolition in 1860. Certainly Lincoln wasn't.
Lincoln's First Inaugural Address said:
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
If you can, then present it.
Since you asked.
Republican senators Henry Wilson of Massachusetts and William Seward (Republican front-runner for president in 1860) knew about John Brown's plans to commit an act of terror at Harper's Ferry 17 months before it happened, yet they told no one. Seward did not object to the plan, he only “expressed regret that he had been told.” (
New York Herald, October 27, 1859).
Barclay Coppoc, one of John Brown's raiders, escaped from Harper's Ferry in October 1859. His brother Edwin was captured and gave his brother up, telling his captors that Barclay was probably back home in Iowa. When Virginia asked for his arrest and extradition to Virginia for trial for murder, treason and insurrection, the Republican governor of Iowa refused, and even sent a messenger to Coppoc warning his that Virginia was seeking his arrest and extradition.
The Staunton (Va.) Vindicator condemned Kirkwood’s entire handling of this case. “The conduct of the Governor of Iowa … is remarkable for its duplicity, and shows to us of the South, what we have to expect from northern officials, elevated to power by the sectional party of the day.” (
Staunton, Va. Vindicator, February 17, 1860.) In other words, this is what a Republican in executive office means: Republicans will use their office to protect from prosecution criminals as long as they are antislavery criminals, which does not bode well for states with lots a slaves, whoever owns them.
The very next week, the Alabama legislature issued a declaration. "anti-slavery agitation persistently continued in the non-slaveholding States of this Union, for more than a third of a century, marked at every stage of its progress by contempt for the obligations of law and the sanctity of compacts [such as the provision of the return of fugitives from justice who have escaped into neighboring states of the Union], evincing a deadly hostility to the rights and institutions of the Southern people, and a settled purpose to effect their overthrow even by the subversion of the Constitution, and at the hazard of violence and bloodshed." (Smith,
History and Debates of the Convention of the People of Alabama, p. 9). Alabama did not issue secession declaration in January 1861, but it did lay out its grievances in February 1860.
Otherwise I firmly believe the CSA were slavers fighting the federal government."
If your whole point is that the troops fighting had weren't fighting on the issues of slavery then okay, but its like trying to defend Germans for fighting with the Nazis. Sure false pretenses, nationalism, certain circumstances, states rights, and etc play a part of an individuals belief. But at the end of the day the Army of Northern Virginia and the Wehrmact were armies fighting for evil regimes, and the world is a better place because both armies were defeated. Point is the Big picture is that the Civil War was a war that revolved around the institution of slavery because the political entities in power have universally cited it as the main and/or contributing reason of secession.
This one:
Article IV of the same Constitution says that Congress shall guarantee to each state of the Union a republican form of government. If Trump declared that California was a bunch of traitors and sent the army to overthrow the state government by force would you be okay with that?
That was the proximate cause of Virginia's withdrawal from the Union. Virginia said that was unconstitutional, antidemocratic and they would not take part in such an act.