"Could public opinion north of the Ohio River have been inflamed due to the Federal government being largely under control of Southern slaveholders?"

Your Post To me, Jan 10th:

"Southerners used the Federal government and the U.S. Constitution as their first line of defense. Opponents in the North resorted to the States Rights position or to a "higher law", something above and beyond the Constitution."

How can the Federal Government be largely under the Control of solely the southern Slaveholders IF the Southerner used the Constitution as their defence? Isn't the law of the land supposed to be the defender of all, The agreed to standards and the governing body of all people and not just one particular segiment?

That is the contridiction. Your post to Pam is a question which implies the guilt of solely the southern slaveholder as the cause of the War, because they "controlled the Government". However, if you are acting within the law how does that imply a guilt of wrong doing? Should you not follow the law? Should you not demand that your government follow the law. Is it not the responcibility of the Government to follow the law? And how can that cause someone to be "Inflamed"? That is what we are asking about our borders and that our government follow and enforce its own laws.

As for McDonald, quote;

"And yet northern fears were not without foundation. Though California was a free state, it was dominated by southern Democrats, and its senators regularly voted with southern members. In the House, “doughface Democrats”, northern men with southern principles, ensured that no legislation unfavorable to the South would be enacted. Pierce’s cabinet included the fire-eater from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis, the secretary of war. Five of the nine Supreme Court justices were from the South."

SO WHAT! If these men are acting in a lawful manner, no matter what their heritage background is, if they are acting within the laws at the time, what wrong have they done? What color of skin, or region of birth, determines the proper conscience of men? Could all of these men be devoid of human conscience simply because they were southerners? or maybe had southern principals? For that matter of fact, What are Southern Principals? Or could they have taken their oaths of office to "uphold and defend" the Constitution seriously? This implies that simply because Democrats, North or south of the Mason-Dixon line, acted in a certain way they were BAD.

So the northern argument, because they disagreed, was that there was a "higher Laws'. A law that superceeds the law of the land. The only Law that is greater than the Constitution is a Law from GOD, A 'moralist' law. A law of religious values.

But whose religion? Whose "higher law" should we follow?

Not all "higher laws" are equal. In present day terms compare the issue of women's rights in Christian Countrys to those in the Muslum faith. And even at that Slavery is not condeamed even in the Christian Bible. In fact it teaches more about the relationship between the master and the slave, than the freedom of the slave. But even Christianity not everybody believes alike. Baptist believe differently than Catholics, and Pentacost believe differently than Episcopalians. So where does this "Higher Moral law", that the North believe in, come from? The Quakers? That is where the anti-slavery movement started.

No, the Civil War was about the seizure of unconstitutional powers by the north, plain and simple, and control of government and thereby control of the people, and not about slavery or any moralistic aims or ideals. As Grandma used to say, 'the proof is in the puddin'. What have we become?