In Defense of the Confederate States of America (CSA)

Con C1: The Reason for Secession was Unjust Con says that since the South seceded over fearing the abolition of slavery, the war must've been about slavery and not state rights, correct? HOWEVER, the South considered slavery to be a right. And Con still hasn't explained how slavery was the root cause when the South was going to abolish slavery while not abolishing the CSA. If slavery was it, wouldn't it have made sense for them to surrender the second that they decided slavery should be abolished? While there were peace negotiations in 1865 prior to the war's end, the South did not surrender and the war did not end until later. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://quod.lib.umich.edu... Con C2: Secession Was Unconstitutional Con brings up the Texas V. White decision as evidence that secession was unconstitutional. HOWEVER, what Con doesn't mention is that this case took place a good 4 years after the Civil War ended. So during the time of the Civil War, the Federal Government was not delegated the power to prevent secession. And according to the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.law.cornell.edu... Therefore, in 1861, states had the legal right to secede. Granted, had they seceded in 1869, perhaps it would've been illegal. Con also says that the CSA fired the first shots of the war, most likely referring to the incident at Fort Sumter. The Confederates had EVERY right to seize Fort Sumter. The Confederate was formed on February 4, 1861. The attack on Fort Sumter took place on April 12, 1861 and it continued until April 14, 1861. Do you know what this means? After the clear founding of the Confederacy, the Union had two whole months to withdraw its military bases from Confederate soil. And they were warned too. That Union base was trespassing on Confederate soil, it knew that it was trespassing and that it'd be attacked if it stood there much longer, and they (the defenders, under the command of Robert Anderson) had plenty of time to evacuate. But they didn't. Also, Con neglects to mention that no one was killed at the Battle of Fort Sumter. In the aftermath several soldiers were either wounded or killed in a freak accident, but that probably wasn't anybody's fault. Note: I already provided an answer to Con's rebuttal A. Con's Rebuttal B. Okay, I suppose this is true. But it only strengthens my point: the South needed slaves. Con's Rebuttal C. Con said that since slavery is evil (a contention that I do not disagree with, by the way), the North had a right to intervene. No...they...didn't. First of all, it wasn't their nation anymore. They'd be intervening in a foreign nation, whose only offense against them was to attack a fort which didn't belong on Confederate soil. Of course, the US in its history has intervened many times in foreign nations over human rights abuses. But what Con doesn't seem to be getting is that the abolition of slavery overnight utterly ruined the South. Con's Rebuttal on the Union: Con says that being a FINO and being a slave are two very different things. How so? Both worked in horrid conditions, neither can leave (well technically the FINO can, but then he or she would starve to death; the slave, by the way, can run away or attempt to run away), and...oh, what's this? The slave owner provides housing for his slave(s). There's a point for the slave owners. By the way, I was not saying that the North was morally inferior. I'm saying that they just barely, if at all, had any moral high ground. Con's Rebuttal on the Psychology of the South: Yes, slavery was wrong. But the North made their own cause harder with the way they treated the South. If Con wants proof that the North thought poorly of the South, I'll give him some. Here are some quotes following the caning of Charles Sumner: William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post, asked, "Has it come to this, that we must speak with bated breath in the presence of our Southern masters?... Are we to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?" The Cincinnati Gazette said, "The South cannot tolerate free speech anywhere, and would stifle it in Washington with the bludgeon and the bowie-knife, as they are now trying to stifle it in Kansas by massacre, rapine, and murder." http://waltercoffey.wordpress.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... Note that in Bleeding Kansas, the abolitionists were also doing the killing. http://en.wikipedia.org...(abolitionist) http://www.pbs.org... Before I go, I would like to say that the Civil War, in the short term, did not truly free the blacks. When many of the blacks were freed, they found themselves with nowhere to go. Thus, many of them simply continued working for their former masters on the plantations, though they went from being slaves to being FINOs. I await con's response.