First of all, I realize most of you don't care to read this so please feel free to bypass it. Todd made an excellent post and I think it deserves a thoughtful response so this is primarily for him.
I've got to be as brief as possible b/c we close on our house Friday and I'm busy as hell at work and I have a ton to do between now and then outside of work. This may be my last post on KF.c until early next week after all the boxes are unpacked. I say all that because I'd like to put a lot more into this response than I have time for at the moment so I hope I can support my points adequately enough for you.
1) The facts you've presented are 100% true. When I said "Slavery was an after-thought relative to these first two factors." I didn't mean to imply that slavery wasn't a concern at all. I merely meant that it wasn't the foremost concern of the Confederacy. As you rightly pointed out, slavery wasn't even Lincoln's foremost concern. I've only tried to state that other factors were a greater concern for both sides than slavery.
2) The quotes you shared are excellent and a couple are new to me, but they are only short snapshots in time relative to all of the other things written and said around that time. These figures were as political then as ours are now so it should come as no surprise that they would say different things to different audiences at different times depending on what was expedient. I can show you other quotes from Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, General Bragg, Stonewall Jackson, and even some from Alexander Stephens that say the exact opposite of the Alexander Stephens quote you shared above. If my books weren't packed up and I wasn't so short on time I'd dig them up for you.
3) The books I have read that cover this period either in their entirety or in part (The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, Is Davis a Traitor, Liberty: The God that Failed, are a few off the top of my head) don't try to discount the importance of slavery to either side during that time period, they merely attempt to provide the evidence we aren't usually taught that places other issues higher on the priority list for both sides than slavery. As I pointed out before, the issue of slavery was still contentiously being adjudicated in the Union states when Lincoln was elected and continued that way throughout the war so it's not like the was was fought between one side clearly in favor of slavery and another side clearly in opposition.
4) There were 4-5 slave states (I can't remember them all, but Maryland and Delaware are two and Kentucky may be another) that never seceded and remained loyal to the Union throughout the war and the Lincoln's government actually protected slavery in those states during that time. He did this b/c he was trying to preserve the union and was willing to capitulate slavery to them in order to keep the union in tact. The confederate states were aware of this so it's illogical that a preservation of slavery was their reason for seceding. Also as you pointed out, had they surrendered the war prior to the Emancipation Proclamation they would have been allowed to keep their slaves. They were fighting for something other than just slavery and that is the influence the northern/industrial states had gained and begun to exploit in the Congress well before Lincoln came on the scene.
5) You make a very good point about Lincoln and secession. I only mentioned Lincoln because he executed the war, not because he was a figure who necessarily factored into secession (though I'm sure he was partly a consideration).
"...we can't possibly ascribe secession to Lincoln, as most of the states seceded months before Lincoln took office. It was the mere election of a Republican (a party founded on explicitly abolitionist principles) that led to secession, as they were concerned that Lincoln was lying about his intention to leave Slavery alone."
You're absolutely right and that's part of the point I tried to make. The wheels of secession were set in motion long before Lincoln's candidacy became a reality. I think you're probably right that Lincoln's election may have been the straw that broke the camel's back for the secession movement, but I disagree that it was the primary cause. That Lincoln was elected and that he ran on a boldly abolitionist platform certainly explains why slavery was such a hot topic in the articles of secession, but I disagree that it proves slavery was the primary cause of secession.
I've enjoyed the discussion Todd and for anyone else who's read this far I apologize for the side-bar. This will be my last post on the subject as it will likely be 5 days or so before I'm back for longer than a poo break.
