re: Robert E. Lee has been misrepresented by regressive "historians"

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There were, and are, no such thing. Exports of US goods may not be taxed per the Constitution.

You are correct, I'm wrong on that. It was rising tariffs and the south was receiving less from cotton trades, as north was taking more and more.

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What the frick? Can't you get it - cotton trade had no effect on national revenue.

Tariff money was the revenue of the federal government.

Southerners controlled the federal government even when Lincoln was elected. There were more southern Justices than northern; the Speaker of the House was usually a southerner. The slave power could always block any legislation it didn't like as long as it had an equal number of senators to all other parties.

"The title of “Democrat” has its beginnings in the South, going back to the founding of the Democratic-Republican Party in 1793 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It held to small government principles and distrusted the national government. Foreign policy was a major issue. After being the dominant party in U.S. politics from 1800 to 1829, the Democratic-Republicans split into two factions by 1828: the federalist National Republicans, and the Democrats. The Democrats and Whigs were evenly balanced in the 1830s and 1840s. However, by the 1850s, the Whigs disintegrated. Other opposition parties emerged but the Democrats were dominant. Northern Democrats were in serious opposition to Southern Democrats on the issue of slavery; Northern Democrats, led by Stephen Douglas, believed in Popular Sovereignty—letting the people of the territories vote on slavery. The conservative Southern Democrats, reflecting the views of the late John C. Calhoun, insisted slavery was national.

The Democrats controlled the national government from 1852 until 1860, and Presidents Pierce and Buchanan were friendly to Southern interests. In the North, the newly formed anti-slavery Republican Party came to power, and dominated the electoral college. In the 1860 presidential election, the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, but the divide among Democrats led to the nomination of two candidates: John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky represented Southern Democrats, and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois represented Northern Democrats. Nevertheless, the Republicans had a majority of the electoral vote regardless of how the opposition split or joined together and Abraham Lincoln was elected."

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