I doubt it was to this extent. Let us remember Chicago's reputation for corruption.
Now that primaries make the difference, the offers are much larger and made to whole classes of the population.
But that is a very different thing from clear cut bribery to an individual.
I like how sometimes it's "all about money" and sometimes it's only about money with the people Diogenes doesn't like.
You've lost me here. When is it not about money? It's always about money.
It's not "bribery." It's "horse trading." It's barter or rational exchange. How do you think running mates and cabinet secretaries were chosen - are chosen? They are the people who offer support to the winning candidate and there's usually a promise (implied or explicit) involved.
You've lost me here. When is it not about money? It's always about money.
My point was that it's always about money and materialistic or opportunistic motivations for you when it comes to Lincoln and the Republicans, but somehow it's more idealistic and pure when other political actors are involved.
I see oppression as something worse than taking money from well to do rich people. Exploitation seems a better word.
I said people rebelled when they felt oppressed. Southerners - plantation owners and slave owners - felt oppressed and revolted. The difference between oppression and exploitation is significant in other matters, but in this regard it's trivial.
Which implies the only correct course of action is to go to war. I'm not convinced that is true.
The correct course of action was not to cave in to sedition and subversion.
And yet again DiogenesLamp wishes to blame a city for some alleged malfeasance, this time Chicago.
Sure today Chicago is our second or third largest metropolitan area, with a reputation for rough & tumble politics, ruled over by Democrats continuously since 1931.
But in 1860 Chicago was nothing like that.
In 1860 Chicago was only the country's 9th largest city, behind others like New Orleans, Baltimore, Cincinnati & St. Louis.
It even briefly had a Republican administration.
So there's no evidence today suggesting Chicago itself was any more or less corrupt than other cities, or that the 1860 Republican convention was any more or less "swampy" than any others of its time.
Indeed, compared to what Democrats did in 1860 (split up their party), Republicans were a civilized model of, ahem, "the art of deal making".
DiogenesLamp: "You've lost me here.
When is it not about money?
It's always about money."
Noooo, if said correctly: money nearly always plays a role, but not always the leading role, indeed more often than not raw money is secondary to other reasons for political passion.
Indeed, DiogenesLamp's sole focus on money in the Union (but not in the Confederacy), tells us there was something a little "off" in DiogenesLamp's education and/or upbringing.