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| Joined: | Sat Jan 27th, 2007 |
| Location: | Texas USA |
| Posts: | 830 |
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You and I can argue about this law or that, or about how onerous one tariff or another was. The key words in what I wrote were: "As the southerners saw it." I was not addressing the veracity of their views, only the views themselves.
The southerners were, quite frankly, used to getting their own way. As they saw it, they were gradually being surrounded and dominated by their opponents. All they could see in the future was more of the same coming.
We can argue whether their political philosophies dictated their economic ones or vice versa. But I believe that they saw no future for themselves in the direction that the country was heading.
I strongly disagree with your view that a few "vicious" Fire-Eaters somehow hoodwinked the southern population into favoring secession. Certainly, many in the south were opposed to the idea at that time, or even in general. The idea was even voted down initially in some places.
Some areas of the states that seceded were pro-Union, and remained so. But I believe that the majority of the southern people in 1861 found the idea of their own nation to be preferable to remaining in one in which the majority held beliefs that had diverged from their own.