Did Lincoln Start the Civil War?

[Braxton Bragg]

Thanks Chris I just forget myself sometimes and say we DAMN IT I am a Reb always will be :woohoo:


Braxton Bragg

[JC Edwards]

Thanks Chris I just forget myself sometimes and say we DAMN IT I am a Reb always will be :woohoo:


Braxton Bragg

Yes......now if we could just harness that British Dark Side of the Force argumentative energy of yours! :laugh:

[JC Edwards]

1. I truly believe slavery is evil and there is no way to legitimize it.
2. The Lost Causers go to great lengths to try to minimize the role slavery played as the cause of the war. Those arguments are not supported by historical facts.
3. If you are inflamed by the above, then you are playing a loosing hand. I, myself am very entertained.
4. Who did I flame?

Well MTG I have to hand it to you.....you certainly do have a talent for Trivializing the Momentous and Complicating the Obvious.

[FLGibsonJr]

Lincoln tried to avoid war (please see his 1st Inaugural), but there came a point where he could not uphold his oath and still avoid war, and that point was Fort Sumter. He sums this up in his 2nd Inaugural, with much more eloquence than I am capable of:

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."

Regards,

Gibson

[Chris G.]

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable and most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so many of the territory as they inhabit."



Abraham Lincoln
January 12, 1848.


Seems old "Honest Abe", might not have been that honest after all. There are plenty of examples of the "great emancipator" flip-flopping on his views. Guess it was just another case of say whatever it takes to get elected, and then do the bidding of those who control the puppet strings.

[burymeonthefield]

People are often confused regarding the firing of Fort Sumter. Major Anderson, from Kentucky, personally believed in all the tenants of the South. He believed in Secession and Slavery. From his writings, it was unclear which side he would fight with. Circumstances led him to side with the North, although he never took up arms against the South.

The firing on Fort Sumter was all a rouge so that the hotheads on both sides could have an excuse to start the war. Lincoln started the War by not simply ordering the withdrawal of Fort Sumter. Lincoln wanted war and he started it. He then suspended habeus Corpus, placed guards in front of the Chief Justices house, and suspended freedom of the Press. (Virgina had a get-out-of-jail free card. Lincoln knew that the Supreme Court would uphold Virginia's right to secede.)

Lincoln wanted war (it is a different debate as to why he thought it justified.) For sure, Lincoln never imagined what hell he was bringing forth.

From my other posts, it can be easily noted that I have a high opinion of Lincoln the man. Can you imagine the pain he felt from all those lives being lost and destroyed? He carried a very heavy burden for years. Lincoln would have let the Country heal if not killed. Slavery would have continued in the border states, most of Louisiana and other regions exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation. (Lincoln planned to allow the Southern States to rejoin the Union immediately. There would not be a sufficient number of states to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.) Our nation would have healed, slaves would have eventually granted their freedom, (those not included in the Emancipation Proclamation) and the blacks horror of the period after reconstruction would have been diminished. Lincoln was a great man who made some of the worse mistakes in the history of mankind.

Burymeonthefield

[Hancock the Superb]

People are often confused regarding the firing of Fort Sumter. Major Anderson, from Kentucky, personally believed in all the tenants of the South. He believed in Secession and Slavery. From his writings, it was unclear which side he would fight with. Circumstances led him to side with the North, although he never took up arms against the South.

The firing on Fort Sumter was all a rouge so that the hotheads on both sides could have an excuse to start the war. Lincoln started the War by not simply ordering the withdrawal of Fort Sumter. Lincoln wanted war and he started it. He then suspended habeus Corpus, placed guards in front of the Chief Justices house, and suspended freedom of the Press. (Virgina had a get-out-of-jail free card. Lincoln knew that the Supreme Court would uphold Virginia's right to secede.)

Lincoln wanted war (it is a different debate as to why he thought it justified.) For sure, Lincoln never imagined what hell he was bringing forth.

From my other posts, it can be easily noted that I have a high opinion of Lincoln the man. Can you imagine the pain he felt from all those lives being lost and destroyed? He carried a very heavy burden for years. Lincoln would have let the Country heal if not killed. Slavery would have continued in the border states, most of Louisiana and other regions exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation. (Lincoln planned to allow the Southern States to rejoin the Union immediately. There would not be a sufficient number of states to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.) Our nation would have healed, slaves would have eventually granted their freedom, (those not included in the Emancipation Proclamation) and the blacks horror of the period after reconstruction would have been diminished. Lincoln was a great man who made some of the worse mistakes in the history of mankind.

Burymeonthefield

Not a bad argument. I can't say that he wanted war, I think he just wanted the South back. But if it came to war, it came to war. Historians nowadays know he wanted to seize the moral high ground by causing the South to "start" it.

[FLGibsonJr]

The facts are not really in dispute, but how you view them in terms of assessing blame for the Civil War are.

Lincoln most certainly did not want War. All of his speeches from the time he was elected until the attack on Fort Sumter were words of compromise and conciliation. He stressed that he did not intend to end slavery in the States where it already existed. He maintained his position that slavery should not be expanded into the territories, but thought that was a fair compromise.

Lincoln, however, made it quite clear that he was not going to permit secession. He viewed such acts as illegal. It was because of this stand that Civil War began. It is quite likely that if he had told the southern States that they were free to go and form their own nation, that despite some northern objections, that probably would have been what happened. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune strongly advocated this position. If this view had prevailed, Lincoln probably would have gone down as one of the worst Presidents in history for allowing the Union to be destroyed.

Some say Lincoln provoked the war by refusing to pull federal troops out of Fort Sumter and ceding all federal forts in Southern States to the new Confederate government. If Lincoln had intended to give up the South and let it go, that certainly would have been the thing to do, but that was not Lincoln's intent. From Lincoln's perspective, the Southern States illegal attempt at secession was not recognized. Federal troops occupying federal forts in southern states had every right to be there and State governments had no authority to remove them.

You can read his views very clearly expressed in his First Inaugural Address:

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

It is worth noting that South Carolina seceded in December, 1860 and that Lincoln did not take office until March 1861. His predecessor, President Buchanan could have removed all federal troops if he had wanted during that time. He chose not to do so. Because Buchanan left troops at Sumter and Fort Pickens in Florida, those became flash points. Had they been evacuated, Lincoln would not have had to deal with those issues so quickly and might have had more time to explore other diplomatic options.

The pro-southern view often charges that Lincoln provoked the attack by attempting to resupply the Fort. However had it been his intent to provoke an attack, he assuredly would not have sent communications to the South Carolina government letting them know that he was merely providing emergency rations of food, that the supply ships would not be carrying weapons, ammunition, or more troops, and expressing the hope that the situation could still be resolved diplomatically.

There were several national leaders who proposed other various compromises, such as an offer to reinstate the Missouri Compromise which would have allowed the expansion of slavery into southern territories. But by this time, a number of southern states had already seceded. In my view, compromises would have only made the north look weak. The only realistic choices were allow secession or go to war.

In the end, Lincoln made his choice and assumed responsibility for it. Northerners tend to blame the south for starting the war by seceding and refusing to discuss compromise. Southerners tend to blame the North for refusing to allow them to secede peacefully. So who you blame really depends on what you think about the legitimacy of secession.

To your next question, did Lincoln expect that the war would be a short "cake walk"? Given his apparent dread of the war, I very much doubt it. It certainly was a possibility that if the Union troops had succeeded decisively in their first major battles and began occupying much of the South that the Southern states might have sued for peace within a few months. But I don't think anyone saw that as anything but one possible outcome.

You also ask, how could Lincoln justify the use of force to prevent secession, especially given the US break with Britain only a few generations earlier?

Even Lincoln himself once said "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." (In 1848 talking about the revolution in Mexico).

Why then, did he deny that right to the South in 1861? Well he really lays out his reasons in his First Inaugural, cited above. While revolution is a right, governments are not obliged to allow such revolts whenever anyone wants to go. His view seems to be that governments are implicitly perpetual and have the right to fight for their continuation just as revolutionaries have the right to end them. Revolt without struggle would simply be anarchy.

To your next question, Lincoln is often criticized for his selection of Generals and for his inclination to micro-manage campaigns. He certainly did involve himself in the military campaigns and expected frequent telegraphed reports of major actions. Lincoln did seem to select quite a number of poor commanding officers and with the exception of McClellan, was fairly quick to replace them whenever they failed to deliver. Personally, I tend not to blame Lincoln for this. It was an unfortunate fact that most of the best officers trained at West Point tended to come from the South and joined the Confederacy when the War began. Lincoln probably made some missteps in selecting leaders and in oversight, but I think all wartime presidents do this to some extent, unless they are just very lucky to pick a great leader at the beginning of hostilities.

As for speculation about the South if it had been allowed to secede. I don't think they ever would have rejoined the Union. Perhaps a few border states might have, but there would almost certainly be more than one country occupying what is today the Continental US. First, it is a matter of pride. Even if the south was not doing well, they would not go crawling back to the Union. That would have been a rejection of the work of their ancestors - any more than we would consider rejoining the British Empire.

The only thing that really might have prompted a rejoining of the Union would be a military need to unite against a foreign attack. After all that was what got the 13 colonies to create the Union in the first place. However, by the 1860's there was not really any foreign power that was seeking to militarily dominate North America. France and Spain were barely able to hang onto their existing colonies in the Americas. North America really saw no potential military threat until WWI, and even there, the threat was primarily sub-attacks against northern trading ships. I doubt the South would have seen any sustained fear that would cause it to rejoin the Union.

If I were to speculate, I suspect that the Confederacy probably would have gone into the empire building business. They probably would have taken over Cuba and several other Caribbean island. They probably also would have gone to war with Mexico in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century when north Mexico oil fields became valuable. Westward expansion would have moved at a faster pace since the Union and Confederacy would have been competing for territories. It is possible they would have gone to war with each other at some point over claims on western lands. I have also read some reasonable speculations that Texas might eventually have broken away from the Confederacy and formed its own country, with a large portion of Northern Mexico and part of the Southwest.

As far as slavery, I imagine it would have continue for at least a few more generations, if only as a point of pride. Racism grew throughout North America into the 1920's. If that had occurred in this alternate history, there would have been little pressure to end slavery. I imagine it probably would have ended in the early 20th Century due to world pressures from other countries -- particularly Britain which was the primary customer of its cotton.

But again, all that is really just speculation since so many events build on others in really unpredictable ways.

So in conclusion to the main point, I don't think Lincoln is justifiably called a "self-righteous war-monger". He did not want war, but was willing to pay the price of war for the principle of maintaining the Union. I also think he hoped to eventually end slavery, but was not willing to go to war on that point alone.

If you are interested in exploring this further, you might find this web site helpful:

http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/

There is also a very good book called "Lincoln and the First Shot" by Richard N. Current which goes into great detail about the events and politics in the months leading up to the attack on Fort Sumter.

I found this very interesting and reasonable, it was written by Historian and Truman Scholar Michael Troy.

[Beef Stu]

sorry i couldn't make it through the 2 years worth of posts here to see if this was brought up. One of my favorite things to show people is this http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelec ... ?year=1860 . no this isn't a map of union and confederacy from 1861, this the election results of 1860. Now even if it was slavery that dictated theses lines , there is still a split in the country that would have to be dealt with .


Now i don't Lincoln at all(and i'm a northern boy) all the nations blood was on his hands.But civil war was inevitable . I understand it , just based on that election map ,if i was southern, i would have pick up my gun too and said there's something wrong here.

[Armchair General]

sorry i couldn't make it through the 2 years worth of posts here to see if this was brought up. One of my favorite things to show people is this http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelec ... ?year=1860 . no this isn't a map of union and confederacy from 1861, this the election results of 1860. Now even if it was slavery that dictated theses lines , there is still a split in the country that would have to be dealt with .


Now i don't Lincoln at all(and i'm a northern boy) all the nations blood was on his hands.But civil war was inevitable . I understand it , just based on that election map ,if i was southern, i would have pick up my gun too and said there's something wrong here.

The South didn't want to play by the rules. When Lincoln got elected, they threw a hissy-fit and left before he was even in office. They would stay with the Union only as long as the person they liked was in the White House. But as soon as a character they didn't like was elected, they said, "Screw you guys, we're going home," (to paraphrase a certain t.v. character.)