What if Lincoln had not decided to invade the South?

[Jitss617]

Three Confederate Veterans at a Reunion. God bless all three of them!

 

[rightwinger]

That's no surprise, given that you don't seem to quite grasp the difference between a Lincoln and a Dodge.

I didn’t bring up Dodge

Yes, you did.

He did say Dodge

You don’t read we’ll do you?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

You don’t read we’ll do you?

At least I know the difference between a Lincoln and a Dodge.

 

[rightwinger]

You don’t read we’ll do you?

At least I know the difference between a Lincoln and a Dodge.

Who doesn’t?

 

[mikegriffith1]

I do agree that war was avoidable, but I don't put the blame all on one side. BOTH sides should and could have done things differently and by so doing avoided war. Davis made some utterly horrible decisions at crucial moments. Lincoln made two or three bad decisions himself. The radicals and hotheads on both sides did nothing but stoke the fires. I think Southern leaders deserve more blame than do Northern leaders, but there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

As for the denial that the Democrats were proudly and plainly the pro-slavery party before and during the war, those who voice this denial are showing either that they are not honest or that they don't know what they are talking about.

 

[Syriusly]

President Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861. At that time, seven states from the Deep South had seceded from the Union, but four other slave states (Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee) had voted to remain. In mid April Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, but the bigger economic threat was converting southern ports to duty-free zones. This would have put Northern Ports out of business and deprived the federal government of a primary source of revenue.

In response, Lincoln called for northern troops to put down (i.e., invade) the rebellious states. This unprecedented action outraged the remaining southern states and caused them, led by Virginia, to secede in short order. Virginia was now the most populous and important state in the Confederacy, which quickly moved its capital to Richmond.

What if Lincoln had not taken this precipitous step and Virginia had stayed in the Union? Without it, the Confederacy would have consisted of a collection of backward agricultural states with little manufacturing capacity, almost entirely dependent on imports from foreign countries. Instead of invading these states, Lincoln could have ordered a trade embargo and blockaded their ports. These actions would have been ruinous to the seceding states and, without Virginia's manpower and manufacturing capacity, they would have been forced to capitulate and rejoin the Union.

What do you think of this scenario? Could we have avoided the carnage and destruction of the Civil War if more moderate steps had been taken? Slavery was already a dying institution. (It had completely disappeared in the Western Hemisphere by 1888.) Was it worth 600,000 lives to end it 25 years sooner?

Ask the slaves.

Founding Fathers believed slavery would die on its own almost a century earlier.

It would have died out if not for the invention of Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin

Which means it would have died out.

Dingleberry

But instead, around a million white boys gave their lives to free the black population from their slavery, something they will never get credit for doing thanks to the American hating Left who continues to insist white America is still racist and needs to be destroyed.

Sigh.
Again- the North did not fight to free the slaves. Abolition was a political decision made during the course of the war. The million or so white- and black troops- who died- died for the concept of a United States.

And of course I give credit to the brave troops of the North for ending the rebellion. And as a white man, I am not certain why you think I want to be destroyed- I recognize that racism still exists in America- and shouldn't be tolerated or encouraged. I don't want anything 'destroyed' but I look forward to a day eventually where racism is no longer an issue.

 

[rightwinger]

I do agree that war was avoidable, but I don't put the blame all on one side. BOTH sides should and could have done things differently and by so doing avoided war. Davis made some utterly horrible decisions at crucial moments. Lincoln made two or three bad decisions himself. The radicals and hotheads on both sides did nothing but stoke the fires. I think Southern leaders deserve more blame than do Northern leaders, but there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

As for the denial that the Democrats were proudly and plainly the pro-slavery party before and during the war, those who voice this denial are showing either that they are not honest or that they don't know what they are talking about.

The South panicked when Lincoln was elected. They thought he would free the slaves. In fact, Lincoln would have fought against the expansion of slavery but would not have been able to end it

With secession, slavery was over in four years

 

[mikegriffith1]

I do agree that war was avoidable, but I don't put the blame all on one side. BOTH sides should and could have done things differently and by so doing avoided war. Davis made some utterly horrible decisions at crucial moments. Lincoln made two or three bad decisions himself. The radicals and hotheads on both sides did nothing but stoke the fires. I think Southern leaders deserve more blame than do Northern leaders, but there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

As for the denial that the Democrats were proudly and plainly the pro-slavery party before and during the war, those who voice this denial are showing either that they are not honest or that they don't know what they are talking about.

The South panicked when Lincoln was elected. They thought he would free the slaves. In fact, Lincoln would have fought against the expansion of slavery but would not have been able to end it. With secession, slavery was over in four years

I would say that the Deep South panicked when Lincoln was elected, but not the Upper South. When the Upper South states voted on secession over slavery, they rejected it by handy margins. The panic occurred in the Deep South states, where the hotheads succeeded in scaring people into believing, as you correctly note, that Lincoln was going to unlawfully free the slaves. The Upper South only seceded, some two months after the Confederacy was formed, because the federal government made it clear that it was going to use force after Jefferson Davis made the terrible blundering decision to attack Fort Sumter.