Blaming Lincoln, and saying he should have ignored Confederate war against the Union is like blaming President Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor and saying he should have ignored Hitler's declaration of war against the United States.
Certainly the CSA is not faultless in the start of the war but you seem to be ignoring Lincoln’s provocations against the CSA that led to the attack on Fort Sumter. There has been speculation that after Lincoln’s inauguration and the South’s secession that Lincoln deliberately provoked war.
It is my view regardless of Lincoln’s intentions his actions made war inevitable.
Most historians would place Lincoln near the top of our presidents because of his freeing the slaves and saving the Union. I however can not agree. In saving the Union he sacrificed the Constitution. In freeing the slaves he sacrificed the lives 600,000 citizens and the liberty of millions more.
Yes I agree that the slaves had to be freed but I do not believe that the Civil War was the only way to achieve that goal. I can not agree that the union had to be saved. Yes it was desirable to save the union but I do not agree that it was worth the price paid in blood and treasure and in my opinion the repercussions of the Civil War have been largely for the worse.
Had Lincoln stood by and done nothing to prevent secession slavery would have eventually died of its own accord. The world was on the verge of the industrial revolution that would have made slavery less and less economical. Slavery’s spread to the west would have been checked by the North being in position of the western territories.
After some period of time reunification may have been possible but even if it did not the two countries could remained friends and have had profitable trade between them and the Constitution and Federalism could have survived.
Agreed.
I don’t see why holding states together BY FORCE is so nice. If you are disgusted with your spouse is it really a great thing you were forced at gunpoint to stay together?
Cotton farming wasn't mechanized until the 1940s, and sharecropping, the debt peonage labor system that replaced slavery, didn't die out until after that.
Only in the same sense that President Roosevelt "provoked" the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by moving the US fleet there.
Pearl Harbor and Fort Sumter were both US military bases on Federal property.
Pontiac: "It is my view regardless of Lincoln’s intentions his actions made war inevitable."
Only in the same sense that a woman might make rape "inevitable" by dressing attractively.
But regardless of how she is dressed, rape is still rape, and metaphorically, that's what the Confederacy did to Fort Sumter.
Pontiac: "In saving the Union he sacrificed the Constitution.
In freeing the slaves he sacrificed the lives 600,000 citizens and the liberty of millions more."
Wrong on both counts.
First, the US Constitution clearly contemplates and provides for vigorous Federal responses to "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasions", "war" and "treason".
And slave-holding secessionists began committing all of these crimes immediately with -- indeed often even before -- formally declaring their secessions.
So Lincoln was simply doing what his sworn oath required: "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Second, while slave-holders did secede -- then started and formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861) -- in order to protect slavery, Lincoln was, in fact, committed to protect slavery in the states where it already constitutionally existed.
So Lincoln went to war to defend the Constitution against open rebellion and a formally declared war on the United States -- not to end slavery.
Only later -- after the Union learned that freeing slaves was a great way to defeat slave-holders militarily -- did Lincoln begin to consider emancipating all Confederate slaves.
Pontiac: "Yes I agree that the slaves had to be freed but I do not believe that the Civil War was the only way to achieve that goal."
In fact, over many years several alternate plans -- i.e., using Federal funds to purchase slaves' freedom -- were offered and rejected by slave-holders.
And the Civil War began not to free slaves, but rather to defeat the Confederacy's declared war on the United States.
Pontiac: "I can not agree that the union had to be saved.
Yes it was desirable to save the union but I do not agree that it was worth the price paid in blood and treasure and in my opinion the repercussions of the Civil War have been largely for the worse. "
The Civil War, with all its costs in blood and treasure, was fought because secessionists started war, then declared war and sent invading armies into every Union state and territory near the Confederacy, including: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
So there was no possibility that Lincoln could let the slave-holders "go in peace".
Pontiac: "Had Lincoln stood by and done nothing to prevent secession slavery would have eventually died of its own accord.
The world was on the verge of the industrial revolution that would have made slavery less and less economical.
Slavery’s spread to the west would have been checked by the North being in position of the western territories."
Wrong again.
First of all, both outgoing President Buchanan and incoming President Lincoln "did nothing to prevent secession".
Civil War did not start because of secession.
It started because the Confederacy made and formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861).
Second, in fact by 1860 slavery itself, and the South in general, became the most prosperous they had ever been, and there was no end in sight.
Average southerners were considerably better off economically than their northern cousins, and over half their growing wealth consisted of increasingly valuable slaves.
Nearly all southerners well understood that slavery was one of the biggest wealth-producing institutions ever invented, and were determined to defend it -- to the death if necessary.
Plus, Confederate military aims included not only defeating the Union to incorporate its remaining slave-holding states (i.e., Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri), but also foreign conquests in the Caribbean (i.e., Cuba) and Central America to which slavery was thought well suited.
So a Confederate victory over the United States would have stopped and reversed the long-term trend to abolish slavery world-wide.
Southern slavery would have a new lease-on-life, one certainly strong enough to survive until it could make alliances with the slavery-ideology of certain national socialists in central Europe...
Pontiac: "After some period of time reunification may have been possible but even if it did not the two countries could remained friends and have had profitable trade between them and the Constitution and Federalism could have survived."
The US Constitution and Federalism, plus the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments certainly did survive the Civil War.
Indeed, it survived another 50 years afterwards, until the "Progressive Era" 16th and 17th amendments put the Federal government on its current path of unlimited growth -- from 2% of GDP in, say, 1912 to nearly 25% of GDP in 2012.
And that "Progressive Era" was started and cheered on by the Solid Democrat South's votes for its heroes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
Although your post is historically spot on, the Lincoln Coven will never agree.
I will note that the Touregs in Mali still have slavery.
So much for the horrific institution of slavery dying of its own accord.