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Did Lincoln Err in not Letting the South Secede?

calamity

calamity

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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?
 
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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You need to review your history. While lincoln was president for the civil war he didn't really start the civil war. The civil war was the blow up of something that had been occuring during the previous past presidents. I would say that it started under fillmore, but i think taylor was there as well.
it went way worse with Pierce and buchannan all but forced the issue out into the open. by the time lincoln got into office the south was already arming for war and calling for succession.

Lincoln didn't have a chance at diplomacy and was not a promoter of slavery. in fact he supported repealing it slowly but surely. the south on the other hand wasn't going to do that. Lincoln was basically in a catch 22. the south was already in the process of succession and there was no way that he was going to allow slavery to continue.

although during that period i consider that the south suppressed their technological development. instead of inventing and coming up with better ways they continued to rely heavily on manual labor and missed a big chance at creating industry.
 
Although there was slavery in the British Empire until the 1920s Britain banned slaves in 1833. Not so sure they would ally with the new country. Hard to imagine that the new country would not join the industrial revolution like every one else. As to becoming rich, the north did anyway and some Keynesians would probably say that the spending helped. Little was destroyed in the north.

No, he did not screw up.
 
ludin said:
You need to review your history. While lincoln was president for the civil war he didn't really start the civil war. The civil war was the blow up of something that had been occuring during the previous past presidents. I would say that it started under fillmore, but i think taylor was there as well.
it went way worse with Pierce and buchannan all but forced the issue out into the open. by the time lincoln got into office the south was already arming for war and calling for succession.

Lincoln didn't have a chance at diplomacy and was not a promoter of slavery. in fact he supported repealing it slowly but surely. the south on the other hand wasn't going to do that. Lincoln was basically in a catch 22. the south was already in the process of succession and there was no way that he was going to allow slavery to continue.

although during that period i consider that the south suppressed their technological development. instead of inventing and coming up with better ways they continued to rely heavily on manual labor and missed a big chance at creating industry.
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Exactly. Had the South seceded, they would be a backward country on our Southern border. Lincoln could have treated them as a buffer between us and Mexico, insisting to keep troops in our existing forts via negotiations.

Constitutionally, the South would then be just another country on our border, a bit like Canada but probably more hostile. I think history shows with the emerging importance of industry, education and technology that the South collapsing under its own weight would have been inevitable.
 
Eric7216 said:
Although there was slavery in the British Empire until the 1920s Britain banned slaves in 1833. Not so sure they would ally with the new country. Hard to imagine that the new country would not join the industrial revolution like every one else. As to becoming rich, the north did anyway and some Keynesians would probably say that the spending helped. Little was destroyed in the north.

No, he did not screw up.
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If there was no war and declaration by the Union that the South was a rebel rather than a belligerent independent nation, things may have been different. After their defeat in 1812, Britain very much wanted a toe hold in the southern half of the NA continent. I doubt slavery would have stopped them.

"Civil War" stopped them.
When the Union did declare a blockade upon the rebel states in April 1861, however, it did not prompt the response expected from the Europeans. The blockade’s legal and political implications took on greater significance than its economic effects because it undermined Lincoln’s insistence that the war was merely an internal insurrection. A blockade was a weapon of war between sovereign states. In May, Britain responded to the blockade with a proclamation of neutrality, which the other European powers followed. This tacitly granted the Confederacy belligerent status, the right to contract loans and purchase supplies in neutral nations and to exercise belligerent rights on the high seas. The Union was greatly angered by European recognition of Southern belligerency, fearing that is was a first step toward diplomatic recognition, but as British Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell said, “The question of belligerent rights is one, not of principle, but of fact.”
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1861-1865/confederacy
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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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If you mean by causing the deaths and disfigurement of a million or so people, then yes he screwed up.
 
WCH said:
If you mean by causing the deaths and disfigurement of a million or so people, then yes he screwed up.
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I agree. Lincoln could have just sown the seeds of discontent. Especially, he could have exploited the animosity between the few haves and many have nots, and just let the Southerners kill each other. Giving them a common enemy was stupid.
 
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In the sense that even today the rest of us would be far better off without the south dragging us down with them, yeah, it was a grievous error.
 
chromium said:
In the sense that even today the rest of us would be far better off without the south dragging us down with them, yeah, it was a grievous error.
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And, he nails on the head that which is the genesis of this thread.
 
An alternate history, mockumnetary from 2004
 
WCH said:
If you mean by causing the deaths and disfigurement of a million or so people, then yes he screwed up.
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Umm he didn't screw up. the south was arming for war before he even got into office.

they were going to fight the union no matter what he couldn't stand idle and let that occur. no president in his right mind would allow someone to attack his country.
 
I believe in the right to self determination, so I would have supported allowing the south to secede. There is no right to own slaves, so I would have supported measures to free the slaves within the new southern nation and allow them to leave it.
 
Hard Truth said:
I believe in the right to self determination, so I would have supported allowing the south to secede. There is no right to own slaves, so I would have supported measures to free the slaves within the new southern nation and allow them to leave it.
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I'm leaning toward this myself.
 
ludin said:
Umm he didn't screw up. the south was arming for war before he even got into office.

they were going to fight the union no matter what he couldn't stand idle and let that occur. no president in his right mind would allow someone to attack his country.
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He could have looked toward making a treaty with the newly formed Confederate States. But Lincoln never left that as an option.
 
This bigots favorite topic. They trivial slaves and slavery to absolutely nothing, declaring either 1.) the entire - literally every dollar and the entire value of the nation if calculated - should have been offered to slave owners to give up their slaves - slaveholders already being the wealthiest people in the USA and/or 2.) eventually slavery would have evolved to sweatshop industry and sharecropping and come to an end on its own - for which it was totally irrelevant how many people were born into and died as slaves until it happened.

It was this argument as to why I most despised the old bigot Ron Paul and his angry white male followers. They cry tears for white people who died in the Civil War and absolutely do not give a **** about those who were born into, sold into and die as slaves nor troubled in the slightest of the unthinkable levels of brutality and torture of slaves. They are white and cry only for white people.

The OP is not an original topic. It is brought up on the forum every couple months and is an issue white racists have been raising since the Civil War.

Lincoln's opinion on the Civil War evolved across the war. He came to believe the only way the "sins" of slavery could be fully purged was in blood, that nothing short of such a total war ever could really end slavery, only possibly it would be renamed and in another form such as "sharecropping."
 
calamity said:
He could have looked toward making a treaty with the newly formed Confederate States. But Lincoln never left that as an option.
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Fortunately that didn't happen. I have to inform you that as much as you may want to own a slave you'll have to move to one of the few countries where this is still allowed.
 
Hard Truth said:
I believe in the right to self determination, so I would have supported allowing the south to secede. There is no right to own slaves, so I would have supported measures to free the slaves within the new southern nation and allow them to leave it.
Click to expand...

You're a white guy since you only believe in white-people self determination, aren't you?
 
chromium said:
In the sense that even today the rest of us would be far better off without the south dragging us down with them, yeah, it was a grievous error.
Click to expand...

^ It would be difficult to all the stupidity of that message.
 
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?
Click to expand...

I suppose that depends on one point of view. The south requested the Union withdraw all their troops and bases from the south. The North refused so it was just a matter of time when the south would have attacked one of their bases/forts. The Union was occupying some of the south territory illegally as the south saw it.

Perhaps you ought to read the book, "If the South had won the Civil War." It was written by MacKinlay Kantor, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his Book "Andersonville." I suppose his version of a different history is as good as anyone else's. I could see exactly what he had to say playing out. After the South's win in the civil war, financial difficulties caused Texas to secede from the Confederacy. So you had the Union, the Confederacy and the Texas, 3 separate nations, But after WWI when all three countries sent their men to fight in Europe, the three re-united to become one again. Interesting book. But most of it is on the war itself.
 
joko104 said:
This bigots favorite topic. They trivial slaves and slavery to absolutely nothing, declaring either 1.) the entire - literally every dollar and the entire value of the nation if calculated - should have been offered to slave owners to give up their slaves - slaveholders already being the wealthiest people in the USA and/or 2.) eventually slavery would have evolved to sweatshop industry and sharecropping and come to an end on its own - for which it was totally irrelevant how many people were born into and died as slaves until it happened.

It was this argument as to why I most despised the old bigot Ron Paul and his angry white male followers. They cry tears for white people who died in the Civil War and absolutely do not give a **** about those who were born into, sold into and die as slaves nor troubled in the slightest of the unthinkable levels of brutality and torture of slaves. They are white and cry only for white people.

The OP is not an original topic. It is brought up on the forum every couple months and is an issue white racists have been raising since the Civil War.

Lincoln's opinion on the Civil War evolved across the war. He came to believe the only way the "sins" of slavery could be fully purged was in blood, that nothing short of such a total war ever could really end slavery, only possibly it would be renamed and in another form such as "sharecropping."
Click to expand...

Yes, his opinion on a central bank and fiat money changed over the course of the war also.

When he didn't want to pay the exorbitant interest rates, it cost him his life.

He and several others took our nation from one form a slavery to perpetual wage slavery, indebted to those same foreign bankers that loan the Union the money in the first place.

That was one of Rep. Paul's points.
 
WCH said:
Yes, his opinion on a central bank and fiat money changed over the course of the war also.

When he didn't want to pay the exorbitant interest rates, it cost him his life.

He and several others took our nation from one form a slavery to perpetual wage slavery, indebted to those same foreign bankers that loan the Union the money in the first place.

That was one of Rep. Paul's points.
Click to expand...

but by adopting modern economic theories and practices, the union was able to get the upper hand over the confederacy, which was handicapped by its traditional economy.
 
WCH said:
Yes, his opinion on a central bank and fiat money changed over the course of the war also.

When he didn't want to pay the exorbitant interest rates, it cost him his life.

He and several others took our nation from one form a slavery to perpetual wage slavery, indebted to those same foreign bankers that loan the Union the money in the first place.

That was one of Rep. Paul's points.
Click to expand...

"Wage slavery." What a joke. If Rand Paul adopts his father's bigotries he will have his angry white men followers and nothing else.
 
joko104 said:
"Wage slavery." What a joke. If Rand Paul adopts his father's bigotries he will have his angry white men followers and nothing else.
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When a person has to work for 5 months out of the year just to pay off his tax debt, what would you call it.

Thanks to people like Lincoln (the butcher) this is where we're at.
 
WCH said:
When a person has to work for 5 months out of the year just to pay off his tax debt, what would you call it.

Thanks to people like Lincoln (the butcher) this is where we're at.
Click to expand...

to quote kurt vonnegut's immortal line from slaughterhouse 5 "So it goes"
 
WCH said:
When a person has to work for 5 months out of the year just to pay off his tax debt, what would you call it.

Thanks to people like Lincoln (the butcher) this is where we're at.
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I understand your view. You're white so how it REALLY should work is that you work 1 hour a day and black people work 18 hours a day for you. And since black people were subhuman animals killing them was just butchering animals to you and therefore is irrelevant.

I understand all the clever ways Ron Paul played to white bigots with absurd claims of every possibly way to justify slavery and bigotry. So I would expect you to do exactly the same.

Again, if Rand Paul adopts such same positions he will end up seen as a white supremacist kook with his following of male white bigots - and nothing else. Hopefully he has higher ambitions than to be the cult leader of white bigoted men.
 
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