Did Lincoln Err in not Letting the South Secede?

Perotista said:

Scanning some of the recent posts, I think most of this disdain for the south is about political ideology and whether one is a R or a D. It may come as news for some folks, but we southerners have the same disdain as northeasterners have for us, we have for them. Of course I am stereotyping here and using the proverbial we and they.

Now if we were voting Democratic the Democratic Northeast would love us, if the Northeast was voting Republican, we southerners would love them. It all boils down to politics and political ideology.

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Actually it has more to do with nonsense like this:
Author Wants Southern States To Secede Over Gay Rights, Name New Country 'Reagan' | Right Wing Watch

Which almost reads like a parody.

While speaking yesterday with Janet Mefferd about his book, “The Secessionist States of America: The Blueprint for Creating a Traditional Values Country…Now,” MacKinnon called for a movement of states, starting with South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, to establish a new country that will adhere to the Religious Right’s political agenda.

Texas, MacKinnon explained, was not included in his secessionist blueprint because “there have been a number of incursions into Texas and other places from some of the folks in Mexico.”

He added that the South had “seceded legally” and “peacefully” during the Civil War, but greedy Northerners like President Lincoln “waged an illegal war that was in fact not declared against the South after the South basically did what we’re talking about in this book now in terms of peacefully, legally and constitutionally leaving the union.”

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calamity said:

Actually it has more to do with nonsense like this:
Author Wants Southern States To Secede Over Gay Rights, Name New Country 'Reagan' | Right Wing Watch

Which almost reads like a parody.

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South Carolina might, but Georgia and Florida are no ways. Florida was really never a traditional deep south state, at least during my lifetime and Georgia has followed the ways of Florida since Jimmy Carter was Governor and has little in common with other deep south states like Alabama, Mississippi or South Carolina.

Parody, yeah it reads like one. But I think the guy is serious. He just better look elsewhere.

Perotista said:

South Carolina might, but Georgia and Florida are no ways. Florida was really never a traditional deep south state, at least during my lifetime and Georgia has followed the ways of Florida since Jimmy Carter was Governor and has little in common with other deep south states like Alabama, Mississippi or South Carolina.

Parody, yeah it reads like one. But I think the guy is serious. He just better look elsewhere.

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Yeah. Georgia, with Atlanta and Savannah, would be tough to squeeze into that idiot's myopic view of how the world ought to be. Florida, from Jupiter clear down to Coral Gables, not to mention Key West, doesn't quite fit his paradigm either.

The guy is clearly writing for the morons. And, since he's probably going to sell more than a few hundred thousand copies of that stupid book, him being crazy like a fox comes to mind.

calamity said:

Constitutionally, I think Lincoln was in his rights to defend Union military interests in the South. So, once the Confederates attacked Ft Sumter, he had no choice but to declare war. However, during the lead up, Lincoln certainly didn't look for a diplomatic solution. So, it could be argued that he instigated said attack.

Imagine if he simply played coy. Let the South go. Watch them implode. Maybe, the union could even help the inevitable failure along by...I don't know, arming slaves and creating unrest. How long would the backward new nation survive?

We know a few things with certainty. 1.) the Brits would have immediately allied themselves with the rebelious new country. 2.) the new country would never have adapted for the industrial revolution. 3.) Northern states would have become rich beyond belief without civil war and reconstruction draining our treasury.

Did Lincoln screw up?

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Lincoln won the U.S. Civil War and freed the slaves.

I don't see that as screwing up.

shrubnose said:

Lincoln won the U.S. Civil War and freed the slaves.

I don't see that as screwing up.

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And as a result we're stuck with a bunch of backward ****s who believe praying will keep the candles lit and stem cells are the work of the devil.

shrubnose said:

Lincoln won the U.S. Civil War and freed the slaves.

I don't see that as screwing up.

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Slavery would have probably ended before the 1860's if there was no Nat Turner Rebellion. That's what I get from reading over a hundred personal diaries and journals kept by Americans before the Civil War.

Peopling the American Past

From "Reading the Man" (A portrait of Robert E. Lee through his private letters) Lee and his wife mention how Lee couldn't free the slaves he inherited through the death of his wife's father because of the laws enacted by the state of Virginia in response to the Nat Turner Rebellion.

The Civil War was already in progress by the time Lincoln took the oath as POTUS.

Lincoln ordered the Union Army to invade the South to recover government property.

When Lincoln discovered that the Union couldn't pay it's bills without the tax revenues coming from the South, the war became about keeping the Southern states in the union.

When the people got tired of the war in the North and were no longer volunteering to fight, Lincoln then made the war about ending slavery.