“A “small group” can’t get that many state legislatures to vote in the majority for their proposals.”
The states that made up the confederacy had one party Democrat controlled legislatures that were actually run by a very small group of people.
The votes were all very quick. The secessionists were organized. There were no public debate or popular vote.
Virginia originally refused to join the secessionists.
Many southerners were not in favor of secession but went along due to the threat of war.
By early 1865, the secessionist politicians were extremely unpopular in the confederate states.
“On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 3, 1863) during the disastrous infantry assault nicknamed Pickett’s Charge, there were two cavalry battles: one approximately three miles (5 km) to the east, in the area known today as East Cavalry Field, the other southwest of the [Big] Round Top mountain (sometimes called South Cavalry Field).
The East Cavalry Field fighting was an attempt by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry to get into the Federal rear and exploit any success that Pickett’s Charge may have generated. Union cavalry under Brig. Gens. David McM. Gregg and George Armstrong Custer repulsed the Confederate advances.”
“The states that made up the confederacy had one party Democrat controlled legislatures that were actually run by a very small group of people.”
If they had “one party” legislatures, that would require a majority of the voters in the state to support that party. That means it’s not a “small group” of people by a long shot. These were representative democracies, not communist dictatorships.
“The votes were all very quick. The secessionists were organized. There were no public debate or popular vote.”
Nonsense, there was public debate over secession since the election of 1860, and plenty of time for people to publish all sorts of pamphlets about it arguing the pros and cons, and even for Northern politicians to weigh in with their views on the matter too. It wasn’t some lightning quick, in the dead of night affair. Perhaps in some legislatures there was some parliamentary maneuvering to make sure they got the votes passed, but that kind of thing was (and is still) par for the course in the USA.