re: #379 lawhawk

Ah, the flag of insurrectionists whose key grievance was that the federal government was limiting their right to maintain/spread the institution of slavery.

Even though, ironically, the country had repealed the Missouri Compromise six years before and barely three years before in Dred Scott, SCOTUS has ruled any congressional attempts to ban slavery in the territories was unconstitutional. Add to that the fugitive slave act passed as part of the 1850 compromise, and slavery rights were far in advance of what they had ever been.

True, in 1859 there was John Brown’s raid into Harper’s Ferry to try to stir up a slave insurrection—but that botched revolt was put down rather quickly by federal troops, led principally by southerners in the military (Lee). And some states were balking at enforcing the fugitive slave act. And there were some abolitionists saying mean things about the south. But overall, the south was seemingly in a pretty good position in the union. But they wanted their own country anyway.