Quote:
| No Sir,
we were fighting for our right to secede from the Union. |
YES! But do you know why the South seceded in the first place? Because during the 1860 election Lincoln said he refused to allow for the expansion of slavery.
Essentially it all started because of Kansas and Nebraska being setup as territories, with the likelihood of them being new states. Kansas was supposed to be a slave free state due to it being too far North, but because of the way it was initiated as a territory there was instead a vote. This caused many anti-slavery & pro-slavery people to move to Kansas (and Nebraska, but to a lesser extent) in attempt to get their side the victory. After a few uprisings, the most popular being the Pottawatomie massacre, it was instead ruled, without a vote, that Kansas will be a slave free state.
You combine the two, and now you have the reason why the south seceded. And I don't dispute that the South had the right to secede - they did. I don't think it was a smart thing to do. To say that slavery wasn't their primary motive is ignorance.