Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence

The poster soakncider points us to the root of his difficulties - abbevilleinstitute.org. I don’t know if you bothered with them - I did. They recite the unambiguous facts of history well enough to retain some degree of respect but they aren’t above creative revisionism to get over the sticky spots. Because they decline to play it straight down the center they’ll never earn credibility as an unbiased history site.

They never claim to be unbiased, and their credibility is on par with any one else’s.

soakncinder: "The North was not united behind Lincoln in his war."

Politics then was like politics now, with Democrats in minority and majority Republicans split between "moderates" (today's "RINOs") and "radicals" -- "radicals" then meaning abolitionists and unconditional surrender-ists.

Democrats then, like Dems now, were much the party of compromise & surrender, but they did nearly all join the war effort, an outstanding example being New York's famous "fighting 69th" & Irish Brigade, which suffered more casualties than any except Wisconsin's (plus Indiana & Michigan) Iron Brigade.

soakncinder: "The South didn't have to invent anything.
There are newspaper accounts from the period, political speeches etc. that declare what people thought, many of whom thought Lincoln was abusing his power."

Once the Confederacy provoked, started & formally declared war on the United States, then the US Constitution's definition of "treason" came into play: levying war against the United States or providing aid & comfort to our enemies.
Naturally, Dems as the party of compromise & surrender to our enemies, were taken aback at the Constitution's power to attack treason, but Lincoln did what he must to, as his oath of office required: "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution.

soakncinder: "And the Old Slave Power was the United States of America, and before that it was England, so it just depends on how far back you want to go to prosecute our forebears."

No, no, FRiend, you seriously misunderstand our history.
That term "Slave Power" was a political epithet of the time, and it referred, precisely, to those from slave-states who were elected to federal office based on the Constitution's 3/5 of slaves rule.
Indeed, the first US President elected by slave-power, and therefore called the "Negro President" by his opponents, was none other than Thomas Jefferson, in 1801.
Generically, "slave-power" referred to all Southern politicians whose main focus was preserving and advancing the cause of slavery.

You might be interested to learn several other political terms of that time:

doughfaces: a term of derision invented by Virginian John Randolf (1820) referring to Northerners who supported the cause of slavery.
copperheads: Some pre-war "doughfaces" became Civil War "copperheads", meaning northerners who supported the Confederacy.
They were sometimes hunted down, arrested & tried for treason.
Fire Eaters: Southerners who campaigned for secession for several years before the 1860 election made it possible, then pushed for war against the United States.
Once war was declared, their role was much diminished, though some did serve as leaders in the Confederate Army.
Wide Awakes: Northern Republicans who suddenly "woke up" to the threat posed by slavery's expansion into US territories & free states.
"Douglas Invincibles", "Young Hickories", "Earthquakes", and even "Chloroformers" (in reference to the "Wide Awakes").
Southern organizations were called the "Minute Men".
These are all names for similar organizations amongst Democrats and Southerners.

Republican Wide-Awakes, circa 1860:

rockrr: "poster soakncider points us to the root of his difficulties - abbevilleinstitute.org.
I don't know if you bothered with them - I did."

No, and now I'm trying to remember where I've seen that name, "Abbeville Institute" before... ?
I am familiar with an Abbeville in Wisconsin, but that surely is not what's referred to... ?

They were sometimes hunted down, arrested & tried for treason.

BS, one of them ran as vice president with McClellan in '64. Copperheads were not hunted down at all. they were a viable political force in the North.

Read your history. George H. Pendleton (McClellan's VP)wasn't a copperhead.

From Wackypedia:

The Copperheads sometimes talked of violent resistance, and in some cases started to organize. They never actually made an organized attack, however. As war opponents, Copperheads were suspected of disloyalty, and their leaders were sometimes arrested and held for months in military prisons without trial. One famous example was General Ambrose Burnside's 1863 General Order Number 38, issued in Ohio, which made it an offence (to be tried in military court) to criticize the war in any way.[8] The order was used to arrest Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham when he criticized the order itself.[9] Lincoln, however, commuted his sentence while requiring his exile to the Confederacy.
Probably the largest Copperhead group was the Knights of the Golden Circle; formed in Ohio in the 1850s, it became politicized in 1861. It reorganized as the Order of American Knights in 1863, and again, early in 1864, as the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with Vallandigham as its commander. One leader, Harrison H. Dodd, advocated violent overthrow of the governments of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri in 1864. Democratic party leaders, and a Federal investigation, thwarted his conspiracy. In spite of this Copperhead setback, tensions remained high. The Charleston Riot took place in Illinois in March 1864. Indiana Republicans then used the sensational revelation of an antiwar Copperhead conspiracy by elements of the Sons of Liberty to discredit Democrats in the 1864 House elections. The military trial of Lambdin P. Milligan and other Sons of Liberty revealed plans to set free the Confederate prisoners held in the state. The culprits were sentenced to hang, but the Supreme Court intervened in ex parte Milligan, saying they should have received civilian trials.[10]

central_va: "BS, one of them ran as vice president with McClellan in '64. Copperheads were not hunted down at all.
they were a viable political force in the North."

I would not call Democrat McClellan a "copperhead", since even he denied wishing to make a compromise peace with the Confederacy.
Other Democrat-copperheads were not so reticent:

"The Copperheads were a vocal faction of Democrats located in the Northern United States of the Union who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates.
Republicans started calling antiwar Democrats "Copperheads", likening them to the venomous snake.
The Democrats accepted the label, reinterpreting the copper "head" as the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from Indian Head cents and proudly wore as badges.[1]
Democratic supporters of the war, by contrast, were called War Democrats."

[Copperheads] "...comprised the more extreme wing of the "Northern Democrats".
Two of the more famous Copperheads were Democratic congressmen from Ohio: Clement L. Vallandigham and Alexander Long.
Republican prosecutors accused some leaders of treason in a series of trials in 1864.[2]"

Copperhead pamphlet:

Pendelton was a copperhead.