[DiogenesLamp]

Well said.

The claim that the South started the war is not "well said." You just happen to agree with it. Throw that out, and the rest falls apart.

Secession was neither democratic nor orderly,

More orderly than the US departure from the United Kingdom.

It was also as Democratic as was necessary.

and eventually the secessionists already declared war on the US: not what respectable US citizens usually do.

Well sure, after Lincoln called for an army to march into their capital and subdue them. Some people take awhile to get the hint, but eventually they catch on that people want to hurt them.

As for the master-slave thing. People "rebel" when they think they are oppressed

Which only occurs when one side has power and the other side is feeling the whip. When they are of equal status, they can simply depart like gentlemen.

Diogenes thinks they were being oppressed.

Exploited, not necessarily oppressed. They were paying the bills, and getting mostly squat in return for the money they pumped into the Government.

Seward might not have won. He would have lost Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, and California.

Would have still likely avoided a war.

If Democrats had run a single candidate against him, they could conceivably have beaten him, but secessionists didn't want to win. They wanted an excuse to secede.

You think their poor political planning is actually a cunning master plan to secede? Even if it were, what is wrong with letting them leave? By what authority does anyone claim to have the right to prevent states in a nation founded upon the principle of secession, from leaving?

Why should anyone be forced to associate with people whom they no longer wish to associate?

And assuming that Seward did win, what would he have done differently from Lincoln?

What could he have done worse?

[x]

Which only occurs when one side has power and the other side is feeling the whip. When they are of equal status, they can simply depart like gentlemen.

When does that happen in real world politics? Secession movement start out with a sense of grievance that can become ulcerous. You of all people ought to know that. And when feelings of grievance become intense enough, people don't "depart like gentlemen."

Sometimes, when nothing is at stake, one party may let the other go, as happened in the later days of the British Empire. But even that was accompanied by much rancor in the newly independent states. When things of value are at stake, things get even uglier.

Exploited, not necessarily oppressed. They were paying the bills, and getting mostly squat in return for the money they pumped into the Government.

1) Same difference. 2) Not true.

Me: Seward might not have won. He would have lost Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, and California.

Diogenes: Would have still likely avoided a war.

If he lost the election, he wouldn't have much say in what happened afterwards.

Me: And assuming that Seward did win, what would he have done differently from Lincoln?

What could he have done worse?

He could have fecklessly dithered like Buchanan and let his underlings ship weapons South to be used against US troops. He could have surrendered forts and territory to the enemy and let the slavers take over the capital. And malcontents today would scourge him for that.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The claim that the South started the war is not "well said."
You just happen to agree with it.
Throw that out, and the rest falls apart."

First, it's important to notice here that DiogenesLamp considers Fort Sumter a key to defending the Confederacy, as he says: "Throw that out, and the rest falls apart."

But the fact is Confederates began committing acts of war against the United States in December 1860, seizing forts (45), arsenals (12), ships (9), mints (3) and other Federal properties across the South.
None of those seizures was "provoked" by Federal actions, and neither was Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter was simply next on the Confederate list to be seized, and required a larger force because of Union troops in it.

And Fort Sumter was among the first times Confederates encountered serious Union on-site resistance to Confederate aggression.
Finally, Fort Sumter was the first Confederate aggression to provoke the Union to call up military forces to retake what was seized.
That was the military action which, if the Union could be said to have "started war", did it.
But even DiogenesLamp can see you can't label a mere call-up "war" when it is in response to actual Confederate acts of war at Fort Sumter.
So, he must back up another step: what about Lincoln's "war fleet" with orders to "attack Confederates" and "invade the South"??

Of course that's all just nonsense:

1. No "war fleet", a simple resupply mission.
2. No orders to "attack Confederates", rather orders of "no first use of force".
3. No "invasion" because the larger ships were to remain well off-shore while small boats brought supplies to Fort Sumter.
   
4. Even Jefferson Davis himself was not concerned about being seen to start war at Fort Sumter.
   Sure he thought it better to maneuver Lincoln into starting firing first, but in the end that didn't really matter, due to "other considerations", #1 being Virginia.

Of course, in a sense, Confederates did not start war at Fort Sumter, they actually started it months earlier seizing Federal properties, Fort Sumter was merely the first serious Union resistance.

All of which DiogenesLamp well knows, but can't acknowledge because it reduces the rest of his Lost Causer defense to mere rubble.