re: New Book by Dr. DiLorenzo: The Problem with Lincoln

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He absolutely preserved the Union.

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This is one of the most infuriating arguments about the Civil War to me. The Union was never in danger of dissolving. It was just going to shrink for awhile with fewer states. It's not like if the South succeeded, then suddenly Ohio and Michigan and Maine were gonna go "Whelp, that's it, there's no more Union, better join Canada".

The bitch of it is, with westward expansion, the Union would have grown again. It's not like Southern Independence would have been a death knell. That's crap. What it came down to was not the Union being in danger of dissolving, but America not getting it's shot at being an empire. I've come to see that's what it was about: manifest destiny meant that America was to be the new Rome, and empires don't shrink. They only grow. Thus, the South had to be brought to heel.