The ‘logical conclusion’
Dear editor:
Article V of the U.S. Constitution states, “no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” So the states cannot be kicked out of the Union. But it doesn’t clearly state what would happen if a state wanted to reject its “suffrage in the Senate.” I made the logical conclusion (not an “unsupported assertion”) that, if they can’t be fired, they can quit. So, the legality must stand. When President Lincoln declared war on the CSA, that was (to me) clearly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
Any “respected historian” must recognize that the Southern states were unsatisfied with the method of calculating their population to determine their representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. There was also the undecided question of whether or not new states were to be allowed to practice slavery. There were other concerns about taxes and commerce, since the Northern states were largely industrial and the Southern states were largely agricultural. So, while we can agree that slavery was the main concern, I am still correct in saying it was not the single cause of the disagreement.
The dictionary definition of “Civil War” is a conflict between two factions of one government with the desired result of one faction taking control of the entire government. I hope we can agree that the CSA did not want to take control of the entire USA. They simply wanted to be left alone to run their own country their own way. The USA was the aggressor, since they wanted to force the Southern states to stay in the Union against their will. Actually, the King of England wanted to keep the colonies under British rule against the colonist’s wishes, so there is that similarity. I don’t think treason was involved in either case and George Washington certainly didn’t want to be called “king” of anything.
Respected historians have reported that both Gen. Robert E. Lee and the CSA president were against the practice of slavery. I think the practice would have been abolished in the CSA in due time without fighting a war over it, but that is just my opinion. M. Wayne Spencer Hot Springs