re: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

quote:

---

1) Lincoln's position was that there was no right to secede. Therefore the people he targeted and slaughtered were indeed Americans according to his vision of the situation.

---

Yeah, he should have commanded the US Army to not fire back at any Confederate soldier. Arrest them if need be and have a trial.

quote:

---

Wasn't unconstitutional for states to secede.

---

But attacking Fort Sumter was an act of war. It rendered Constitutional basis for secession moot. Lincoln knew that. It's why he goaded the South into the attack.

quote:

---

Traitors deserve a traitor’s death. The confederates were redneck losers, nothing you should be proud of colonel reb.

---

Yet again, i never understand the mentally challenged's fascination with trying to insult people who died over 150 years ago.

Hey Burt, you gonna talk tough about Hitler, Mao...Genghis Khan next? How does one get so brave as you, to be so emboldened to try to insult and anger people that died over a century ago, anonymously on the internet? You have some serious street cred. I'm sure your friends say, "watch out for Burt. He insulted my 8th great grandfather last week with such rapier wit, that he died a 2nd time!"

We were a mess. Even the democratic party was split between two candidates for president (the main reason they lost to Abe). Had the southern democrats went with the northern democratic nominee, Ohio probably would have aligned with Alabama, etc. The only issue that united the democrats was succession. It was a very complicated issue and I suggest everyone read up on the topic.

quote:

---

At the time of the War Between the States Lankum's home state, Illinois, prohibited blacks (slave or no) from setting foot on its soil.

---

Well, that's not true of course.

quote:

---

Who fired the first shots?

Who had the first shots fired at them?

---

Look deeper.

Maybe start with Lincoln’s letter to Gustavus Fox. In that letter, he acknowledged that having the South Carolinians fire the first shot (which did not have to be construed as an act of war) was exactly the outcome he desired.

We can also see his intentions by his many of previous statements that he was not planning on reprovisioning Fort Sumter. History shows that turned out not to be true. Some would say he lied.

But what we also know from history is that Lincoln's military advisors plainly warned that a ship taking provisions to Fort Sumter would be fired upon (knowingly risking deaths of fellow Americans). But he did it anyway against his own promises and against the advice of military advisors. He also did it with advance notice to the people that he had hoped would fire that shot. It is one of the clearest conclusions in history that Lincoln wanted this war. But to gin up feelings of patriotism, he needed to be cast in the role of responder rather than instigator.

He was the educated leader that was instigating uneducated and emotionally aroused South Carolinians who had merely declared their Constitutional right to secede.

Lincoln had hoped he could antagonize the South Carolinians into firing the first shot. In modern terms, we call that escalating the situation. You only escalate when you are looking for a fight. Police officers lose their jobs for escalating a situation. Lincoln on the other hand, has been cast as hero by historians for doing the very thing that currently justifies shame and disgrace.

quote:

---

Lincoln had hoped he could antagonize the South Carolinians into firing the first shot. In modern terms, we call that escalating the situation. You only escalate when you are looking for a fight. Police officers lose their jobs for escalating a situation. Lincoln on the other hand, has been cast as hero by historians for doing the very thing that currently justifies shame and disgrace.

---

Indeed.
Lincoln's handling of Virginia (and NC by extension) in the run up to Civil War was also appallingly inept ... at best.

quote:

---

I think Eventually slavery would have ended, but the south was not trending that way anytime soon

---

In my opinion, southerners should have had the wisdom to foresee that slavery was a dying institution and morality aside, was economically inefficient. It would only be efficient for as long as cotton from the south was the primary source of cotton. The imminent industrialization of the cotton industry would have made slaves too expensive to own. Other nations would have ended up producing it much cheaper unless the South found a way to produce it cheaper first.

Slavery would have died peacefully (without bloodshed) as an institution just as it did in every other civilized nation. But both sides had no patience for that. It was an era where economic realities were poorly understood.

quote:

---

There is not an honest and intelligent student of history anywhere that will tell you the Civil War had anything at all to do with slavery.

---

Only someone who doesn't study history would argue this.