" ...his own diagnosis of the position, which is, curiously enough, that the leaders of the inchoate Confederacy are no more at one in their ultimate plans and purposes than, according to my best information, are the leaders in South Carolina."

Wow, that's loaded!
If we go by the assumption that South Carolina wished to make a point but not necessarily a war, we see a disaster. With other states jumping on the bandwagon, it snowballed fast. What was the catalyst?

Florida had only been a state for about 15 years. Many of those who voted to seceed were still full of memories of the freedom they had under Spanish rule. There was a lot less government then. Free trade meant just that. They were individuals and did what they wished for the most part accounting to no one. In some ways it was like the wild west. To lose the restraints that the Federal government put on them due to taxes and other 'rules' I can see the appeal. Maybe they thought that a smaller Confederacy would be more to their liking and that is why they joined. They did flip flop the vote like they couldn't make up their mind.

Pam