I think this topic shows how far neo-confederate propaganda has penetrated popular thought. it.
1) Why did the South leave in the first place? As is often pointed out as a pro-Southern argument Lincoln had no attention of immediately abolishing slavery.
The South was hysterical about the election of Lincoln because, up till then essentially the U.S. had been run as a slaveocracy. The constitution and the law both north and south were biased in favor of slavery. A supreme court decision had essentially extended slavery even into North. Not only did mobs and what amounted to death squads eliminate most aboveground abolitionist activity in the North, but abolitionist even in the North faced death threats and assasination (less as the civil war approached --but the danger never was eliminated.
Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he was a free soiler. If the south had remained in the Union, they would have remained in a US in which all additional states admitted would have been free states, meaning that the slavers would have been outvoted in a very short time. In addition, the fugitive slave law would have been a dead letter, slavery would have been confined to the South and not allowed in the North.
And this would have killed slavery. Chattel Slavery could not have survived with all the special advantages and subsidies withdrawn from it.
And this is the heart of the mistake made by revisionists who think that the South should have been left to "withdraw in peace".
If the South had simply wanted to be left alone, no withdrawal would have been neccesary. The dynamic chattel slavery of the old South had this in common with modern capitalism. It was an expansionary dynamic system, which had to grow or die. The first shots of the Civil war were fire by the South, not by the North at Fort Sumter. I know that defenders of the South may argue that they were provoked, that the South should have been left to take the U.S. armory, the U.S. treasury and go in peace. I personally find it impossible to imagine that if they had been let go in the peace that they would not have soon found some excuse or other to have declared war on the U.S. -- perhaps by demanding a return of "stolen property" i.e. runaway slaves.
In short it may be true that slavery would have died away naturally, in "fair competition" with capitalism. (I'm not convinced of this, but others on this list have dealt with this poin in much more depth than I'm qualified to do.) But there is little question that the slaveocrats had little intention of submitting to a "fair competition", any more than capitalism will ever willingly submit to a "fair competition" with a socialist society.
Minor points 1)
It is by no means certain that all of the original members of the confederacy joined willingly. The fact is that most legislatures that voted to leave the Union did so with armies camped outside their doorsteps. In some cases this propably represented popular opinion (shaped by a captive press in what amounted a police state with all popular dissent suppressed by violence and often murder). But there is little doubt that an attempt was made to drag Maryland out of the Union by force. The existence of West Virginia casts some doubt as to whether the majority really supported the confederates throughout the confederacy.
Minor point 2)
The confederate governement did not itself practice the States right principle it used as justification. To take just one example, when South Florida tried to withdraw from the confederacy, it was returned to the confederate states by force.
On the one hand I do not want to see the civil war refought on this list. But on the other, a great deal of neo-confederate proganda is built into our eductational system. (I grew up with textbooks that would have led me to the conclusions many on this list have stated.) This post does on begin to challenge all the widely believed myths about the civil war that are widespread in this society, and to which members of this list are not immune.
------- Gar W. Lipow 815 Dundee RD NW Olympia, WA 98502 http://www.freetrain.org/