Did Lincoln Make a Mistake?

[RightWingConservatives]

The secession itself proved that the Planter aristocracy would never give up slavery without violence.

Read my post?

There was an ammendment that would have allowed slavery in perpetuity that was accepted but the southern States declinedto remain in the union, so I don't think your less supportive offer was going to do the trick.

I'm a big fan of both Lee & Davis bit they certainly weren't anti-slavery and a large proportion of Confederate Leaders were very pro-slavery. Their speeches certainly don't indicate any anti?slavery views or even moderate views.

[RightWingConservatives]

"If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree." ~Davis

"African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing." ~Davis

"My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be." ~Davis


Yes. Davis was very anti-slavery. I stand corrected.

[Undivulged Principles]

Lincoln should have let the South secede... it's as simple as that.

The majority of people living in the South supported separating from the US and forming a new country... they should have had the right to do that. Lincoln was an enemy of democracy because of what he did...

If today a majority of people in Texas wanted to form their own country but Obama sent tanks, soldiers, and planes to bomb and destroy their homeland to force them to stay in the US... we would without hesitation label him a tyrant.

Lincoln is literally, without contest, the US president that has killed the MOST Americans on American soil! In fact, under his presidency more homes and lives were destroyed on US soil than during all of the rest of the presidents' office terms added up together! And he did it ALL (not to end slavery, that was never the goal from the start remember?) in defiance of self-determination and democracy.

The South wanted to leave, most Southerners were onboard... instead of recognizing this... Lincoln said HELL NO and ended up turning half of his own country into a wasteland.

Most of what you state is correct except your last paragraph isn't at all. The vast majority of soldiers fought on the side of the confederacy because as one so eloquently stated, "because you are down here". They felt they were defending their homes from invasion.

I am going to see Lincoln today. Lets see if they talk about the February 1861 13th ammendment and portray Lincoln as Mr. Honesty.

[Forsakia]

As a democracy, you have to respect self-determination.

Nobody recognized the South's because they had no legitimate cause to do so beyond their own knee-jerk love of slavery.

Self-determination is like voting, you're either in favour of it or you aren't. If you support it then you can't revoke the right because you don't like people's reasons for how they use it.

The United States itself was founded on the basis of a rebellion.

Doesn't form any sort of legal precedent or justification at all. None. Check the SCOTUS rulings if you don't believe me. Texas v. White. Start there.
The south was never sovereign, giving the Union every right to crush the states in rebellion.

Revolutions are pretty much never legal. Countries tend not to legislate to allow them for some reason?

If the US had a right to secede from the British Empire because a majority of Americans wanted it, then Southerners have a right to separate from the United States in a situation where a majority of Southerners want it.

Not under the Constitution, they don't.
The US rebelled because rights guaranteed to English citizens were going unfulfilled.
The South rebelled because they loved enslaving black people, and couldn't stand staying in a country that had just elected a man who disagreed with them. As such, they decided they'd rather tear the Union apart than give up their slaves. Sorry, sad truth.

The parallels to the American Revolution are uncanny...

Not really, however much the South constantly fucking harped on it. The American revolution was justified based on the founding documents of the nation they were purportedly part of.
The South just hypocritically hid behind cherrypicked and misinterpreted parts of the Constitution (if they bothered at all).

Care to elaborate on these guaranteed rights and founding documents?

(Of course support for slavery does get a minor mention in the declaration of independence, but people don't like to talk about that).

[Nazis in Space]

Oh yeah? So if I took a poll in the 1860s I wouldn't find a clear majority of Southerners declaring support for the Confederacy?

The vast majority of Southerners were right behind their state governments.

I sincerely doubt it'd me more than 60% of the total population.

The remaining 40% being slaves.

Meaning that a mere sixth of the white population preferring to remain with the Union makes it even.

Now, keeping in mind that the Confederacy actually had significant problems with people of continental european roots not being happy with slavery and consequently dodging the draft... For that matter, Virginia was so divided, the part of it that was unhappy with the developments (Coincidentally, the slavery-free part) choose to stay with the Union, forming West Virginia.

Yeah. You ain't gonna get something better than a 50/ 50 split.

Unless you're excluding the slave/ black population from the Southern demographics. Which really, would say quite a lot about you, don't you think?

So it's ok to send tanks, planes, and armies to bomb the hell out of Texas in a situation where a majority of Texans and their state government support independence and freedom from the US?

You know, by authorizing the crap Grant and Sherman pulled in the American South against Southern civilians and Southern homes Lincoln is also President Number One in terms of committing war crimes against civilians on US soil.

Whereas Jefferson Davis is President Number One in terms of enslaving Americans, and having black PoWs executed on the spot.

Shermans march to the sea wasn't nice. But it's doubtful it'd have happened if the South hadn't been a bunch of savages positively asking for it throughout their campaigns.

The South had no choice. The North had more people, more guns, and were talking about invading. A pre-preemptive strike was necessary... plus you are forgetting one thing: NO ONE WAS KILLED.

A sovereign nation has the right to demand that all foreign installations, flags, and soldiers be removed from its soil. A sovereign nation ought to sovereign as soon as the majority of people are behind it. The South was in such a situation and since the North refused to leave, it had the right to fire at the Fort.

It wasn't the South's soil any more than Guantanamo is Cuban soil. Welcome to international law.

Southern democracy had large bases of voters, elected representatives, and a functional system of democracy. It is undemocratic to smash democratic institutions with military force (what Lincoln did).

70% of its population (Slaves and women) were disenfranchised. Functional system of democracy my ass.

Myth: the Union would have been crippled had the South left it.

This is true. Losing a piece of third world isn't a big loss, all things considered.

[Forsakia]

.

Southern democracy had large bases of voters, elected representatives, and a functional system of democracy. It is undemocratic to smash democratic institutions with military force (what Lincoln did).

70% of its population (Slaves and women) were disenfranchised. Functional system of democracy my ass

Wouldn't that make is as functional as the USA generally?

[Vulpae]

.70% of its population (Slaves and women) were disenfranchised. Functional system of democracy my ass

Wouldn't that make is as functional as the USA generally?

Actually the United States does not disenfranchise it's people, let alone 70%. However it is currently recovering from a recession brought about by the clinton era congress's repeal of loan regulations, which was exaserbated by the encouragement of the Bush administration via various tax cuts and incentives. When the bubble finally popped it revealed many mistakes made in politics and investment stretching all the way back to the 80's and the vast downsizings and outsourcings of the 90's, then the ignoring of the growing problem in the 00's in favor of two wars, one of which was unjustified and rampant with war-profiteering.
This has resulted in a wealth cap between the highest earning americans, and everyone else, whose incomes have not increased when the prosperity of the nation did during those years. The foundation could not support the weight and stress of gordon geko style investment, and an economic recession was inevitiable.

This in turn lead to the election of a president who differed from his predicessors, including his approach to the wealthy who made out amazingly well during the last three decades, touching off a political battle with The Old Guard of the republican party who premoted the policies he is set on reversing, who have pulled out the stops to try and bind the president's hands as they see him as evil (and he is trying, weather you see him as sucessful or bumbling, to undo those thirty years worth of ingrained policies). In doing so they sold out their moderate wing, and lost the next election. All this of course raging onward as the country tries to lift itself out of the recession.

But American citizens are not being whipped and denied basic human rights as they were in the Confederate States.

[North Vetterland]

No. He stopped total anarchy

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Nobody recognized the South's because they had no legitimate cause to do so beyond their own knee-jerk love of slavery.

Self-determination is like voting, you're either in favour of it or you aren't. If you support it then you can't revoke the right because you don't like people's reasons for how they use it.

I suppose it doesn't make a difference, anyway - secession isn't allowable under any circumstance.
And I can oppose it when limited, low-level, federal sovereignty votes for things that are illegal, that go against the hugher law of the land.
Perhaps I invoked the ideological issue when I should have invoked the legal issue more clearly.

Doesn't form any sort of legal precedent or justification at all. None. Check the SCOTUS rulings if you don't believe me. Texas v. White. Start there.
The south was never sovereign, giving the Union every right to crush the states in rebellion.

Revolutions are pretty much never legal. Countries tend not to legislate to allow them for some reason?

True.
The fact of the matter was, neither rebellion had much of a strictly legal leg to stand on (according to the supreme laws of their land), so you have to look at the underlying reasons and ideologies if you want to compare.
On that level, I think it's pretty clear the South comes up short, and the American Revolution becomes much more clearly justified.
And in contrast to what the CSA apologists say, there is no legal mechanism for secession in the Constitution that gives them the "right to rebel", or even the right to leave.

Not under the Constitution, they don't.
The US rebelled because rights guaranteed to English citizens were going unfulfilled.
The South rebelled because they loved enslaving black people, and couldn't stand staying in a country that had just elected a man who disagreed with them. As such, they decided they'd rather tear the Union apart than give up their slaves. Sorry, sad truth.

Not really, however much the South constantly fucking harped on it. The American revolution was justified based on the founding documents of the nation they were purportedly part of.
The South just hypocritically hid behind cherrypicked and misinterpreted parts of the Constitution (if they bothered at all).

Care to elaborate on these guaranteed rights and founding documents?

The American colonists were, in terms of taxation and governmental authority over them, British.
In terms of the fair representation supposedly guaranteed to them through the House of Commons (and the admittedly unwritten English Constitution), they were not treated as such. Rotten boroughs of England, like Seaford, populated by literally no one, had more official representation than the entire sum total of the Colonies in Parliament, as they leveed huge taxes on the Colonies without their input or assent.
This was a huge discrepancy in terms of rights granted to them compared to obligations leveed upon them, that was demonstrably unfair. Though they may not have had the legal right to rebel or secede, it's much easier to justify than the South's rebellion.

(Of course support for slavery does get a minor mention in the declaration of independence, but people don't like to talk about that).

The Declaration is not a binding legal document (beyond the titular declaration).

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Wouldn't that make is as functional as the USA generally?

Actually the United States does not disenfranchise it's people, let alone 70%. However it is currently recovering from a recession brought about by the clinton era congress's repeal of loan regulations, which was exaserbated by the encouragement of the Bush administration via various tax cuts and incentives. When the bubble finally popped it revealed many mistakes made in politics and investment stretching all the way back to the 80's and the vast downsizings and outsourcings of the 90's, then the ignoring of the growing problem in the 00's in favor of two wars, one of which was unjustified and rampant with war-profiteering.
This has resulted in a wealth cap between the highest earning americans, and everyone else, whose incomes have not increased when the prosperity of the nation did during those years. The foundation could not support the weight and stress of gordon geko style investment, and an economic recession was inevitiable.

This in turn lead to the election of a president who differed from his predicessors, including his approach to the wealthy who made out amazingly well during the last three decades, touching off a political battle with The Old Guard of the republican party who premoted the policies he is set on reversing, who have pulled out the stops to try and bind the president's hands as they see him as evil (and he is trying, weather you see him as sucessful or bumbling, to undo those thirty years worth of ingrained policies). In doing so they sold out their moderate wing, and lost the next election. All this of course raging onward as the country tries to lift itself out of the recession.

But American citizens are not being whipped and denied basic human rights as they were in the Confederate States.

I think he was comparing it to the 1860s United States, unfortunately.
However, people were still more enfranchised in the North than the South.

[Trotskylvania]

70% of its population (Slaves and women) were disenfranchised. Functional system of democracy my ass.

More than that. Poor whites were systemically disenfranchised, both politically and economically, by the Southern Aristocracy.

If this topic is indeed the question of Lincoln making a mistake, I think it's reasonable to say that his biggest mistake was not turning the outbreak of the slavers' insurrection into a moral crusade against a fundamentally antidemocratic, and quite frankly evil Southern aristocratic regime from the start. A crusade against the slave system, and everyone it disenfranchsed, black and white, could have easily been framed as just fighting the last battle of the American Revolution.

[Arlenton]

Im all for states rights, except their rights to infringe the constitution like slavery, gun control, etc.

[West Angola]

If the South had been allowed to secede, both North and South could have benefited. The North would have evolved into a country with social and economic policies similar to those of Canada or northern European countries without the continuing drag of a large undeveloped and inefficient South. The South would have experienced the wrenching transition from a plantation economy based on slave labor to a manufacturing economy based on free labor. But after that transition, the South would have had a vibrant productive economy.

I am from Alabama, but a separate South would have been a disaster. The CSA's traditional allies were France and Britain, which would have driven the US into an alliance with Germany prior to World War One. Imagine France in 1917, except it's Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.

[Farnhamia]

Im all for states rights, except their rights to infringe the constitution like slavery, gun control, etc.

The states have no rights, they have powers. The people have rights. You can look this stuff up.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

70% of its population (Slaves and women) were disenfranchised. Functional system of democracy my ass.

More than that. Poor whites were systemically disenfranchised, both politically and economically, by the Southern Aristocracy.

If this topic is indeed the question of Lincoln making a mistake, I think it's reasonable to say that his biggest mistake was not turning the outbreak of the slavers' insurrection into a moral crusade against a fundamentally antidemocratic, and quite frankly evil Southern aristocratic regime from the start. A crusade against the slave system, and everyone it disenfranchsed, black and white, could have easily been framed as just fighting the last battle of the American Revolution.

I do wish it had been possible for Lincoln to do this as well. However, had he done that from the start, he would likely have lost Kentucky and near-certainly lost Maryland and Delaware. It would have crippled the Union cause.
The Union needed a victory, and to force the border states to commit to the Union before he really could make that the prime issue. That took time.

[Arlenton]

Im all for states rights, except their rights to infringe the constitution like slavery, gun control, etc.

The states have no rights, they have powers. The people have rights. You can look this stuff up.

Then replace "rights with "powers" and there ya go sporty.

[Farnhamia]

The states have no rights, they have powers. The people have rights. You can look this stuff up.

Then replace "rights with "powers" and there ya go sporty.

Then you agree with the Founding Fathers and most people not in the Republican Party. Sporty.

[Laerod]

If the South had been allowed to secede, both North and South could have benefited. The North would have evolved into a country with social and economic policies similar to those of Canada or northern European countries without the continuing drag of a large undeveloped and inefficient South. The South would have experienced the wrenching transition from a plantation economy based on slave labor to a manufacturing economy based on free labor. But after that transition, the South would have had a vibrant productive economy.

I am from Alabama, but a separate South would have been a disaster. The CSA's traditional allies were France and Britain, which would have driven the US into an alliance with Germany prior to World War One. Imagine France in 1917, except it's Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.

That's not the reason you should be opposed to the CSA...

[West Angola]

That's not the reason you should be opposed to the CSA...

Trust me, I have a laundry list of reasons, that was just one of them.

[Forsakia]

But American citizens are not being whipped and denied basic human rights as they were in the Confederate States.

I think he was comparing it to the 1860s United States, unfortunately.
However, people were still more enfranchised in the North than the South.

Yes, although were they? And if so was that based on there just being a smaller black population in the north (which seems a pretty weak distinction).

Criticising the south for having the same voting restrictions seems peculiar. The Confederacy wasn't very democratic because the USA wasn't very democratic.

[Farnhamia]

I think he was comparing it to the 1860s United States, unfortunately.
However, people were still more enfranchised in the North than the South.

Yes, although were they? And if so was that based on there just being a smaller black population in the north (which seems a pretty weak distinction).

Criticising the south for having the same voting restrictions seems peculiar. The Confederacy wasn't very democratic because the USA wasn't very democratic.

Perhaps, but at least the northern states didn't think it was such a wonderful idea to own people as property that they made it the cornerstone of their rationale for existing.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I think he was comparing it to the 1860s United States, unfortunately.
However, people were still more enfranchised in the North than the South.

Yes, although were they? And if so was that based on there just being a smaller black population in the north (which seems a pretty weak distinction).

Criticising the south for having the same voting restrictions seems peculiar. The Confederacy wasn't very democratic because the USA wasn't very democratic.

Yeah, there was a smaller black population in the North, because there was MUCH LESS SLAVERY.
Slavery counts as disenfranchisement too - a supreme form of it.
And the South was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall over that.

[Olthar]

I would have liked to see a world where either the Confederate States won their independence or Lincoln just let them go, if only for curiosity's sake as there's no denying that world would have been a very different place.

[Forsakia]

Yes, although were they? And if so was that based on there just being a smaller black population in the north (which seems a pretty weak distinction).

Criticising the south for having the same voting restrictions seems peculiar. The Confederacy wasn't very democratic because the USA wasn't very democratic.

Yeah, there was a smaller black population in the North, because there was MUCH LESS SLAVERY.
Slavery counts as disenfranchisement too - a supreme form of it.
And the South was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall over that.

So your argument is "the north didn't let any black people vote either, but there weren't so many of them there"? And that's the bar for "functioning system of democracy"?

Yes, although were they? And if so was that based on there just being a smaller black population in the north (which seems a pretty weak distinction).

Criticising the south for having the same voting restrictions seems peculiar. The Confederacy wasn't very democratic because the USA wasn't very democratic.

Perhaps, but at least the northern states didn't think it was such a wonderful idea to own people as property that they made it the cornerstone of their rationale for existing.

No, it was just a minor part of the original rationale. But it seems the South's democratic system was just as democratic as the USA's in general at the time in terms of enfranchisement.

Self-determination is like voting, you're either in favour of it or you aren't. If you support it then you can't revoke the right because you don't like people's reasons for how they use it.

I suppose it doesn't make a difference, anyway - secession isn't allowable under any circumstance.
And I can oppose it when limited, low-level, federal sovereignty votes for things that are illegal, that go against the hugher law of the land.
Perhaps I invoked the ideological issue when I should have invoked the legal issue more clearly.

Revolutions are pretty much never legal. Countries tend not to legislate to allow them for some reason?

True.
The fact of the matter was, neither rebellion had much of a strictly legal leg to stand on (according to the supreme laws of their land), so you have to look at the underlying reasons and ideologies if you want to compare.
On that level, I think it's pretty clear the South comes up short, and the American Revolution becomes much more clearly justified.
And in contrast to what the CSA apologists say, there is no legal mechanism for secession in the Constitution that gives them the "right to rebel", or even the right to leave.

Revolutions never do. If you justify them based on self-determinism and the desire of the population to be independent then you can't credibly pick and choose based on the reasons for it.

Care to elaborate on these guaranteed rights and founding documents?

The American colonists were, in terms of taxation and governmental authority over them, British.
In terms of the fair representation supposedly guaranteed to them through the House of Commons (and the admittedly unwritten English Constitution), they were not treated as such. Rotten boroughs of England, like Seaford, populated by literally no one, had more official representation than the entire sum total of the Colonies in Parliament, as they leveed huge taxes on the Colonies without their input or assent.
This was a huge discrepancy in terms of rights granted to them compared to obligations leveed upon them, that was demonstrably unfair. Though they may not have had the legal right to rebel or secede, it's much easier to justify than the South's rebellion.

Where was this representation guaranteed to them?

Also, there was a reason that taxes were being raised at the time, namely that Britain was putting more money into the colonies than they were getting back. Taxes generally were much lower in the colonies than in Britain itself.

Of course it should be noted that the newly independent USA had voting restrictions based on property, gender, and race (as was pretty normal at the time). So in terms of voting things only changed for white male landowners.

(Of course support for slavery does get a minor mention in the declaration of independence, but people don't like to talk about that).

The Declaration is not a binding legal document (beyond the titular declaration).

.

No, but it lays out what the authors considered to be their grievances and justifications for rebellion. It was much mocked in Britain at the time (not that Britain had an exactly spotless conscience on slavery of course, /understatement I'm certainly not trying revise that history to make Britain any kind of paragon or anything like that.) but you had cartoons of American revolutionaries holding the DoI in one hand and a slave whip in the other and similar so it did form part of the British political scene/debate on the issue at the time.

It gets glossed over of course, see the controversy over Chris Rock's independence day tweet, but was there.

Philosophically you can either justify revolution through harsh treatment or self-determinism. I lean towards the latter and think of it as it's own justification. Which possibly makes the revolutions legitimate (we of course lack polling data about how the general population felt). But the logic of:

A: We want to be independent, rule ourselves, and all that jazz.
B: Sorry, but I've decided you shouldn't because I don't think you've been treated badly enough to justify it.

doesn't ring true to me.

[Xsyne]

I think he was comparing it to the 1860s United States, unfortunately.
However, people were still more enfranchised in the North than the South.

Yes, although were they? And if so was that based on there just being a smaller black population in the north (which seems a pretty weak distinction).

Criticising the south for having the same voting restrictions seems peculiar. The Confederacy wasn't very democratic because the USA wasn't very democratic.

Well, five states in the North allowed blacks to vote, while zero in the South did, so I'm pretty sure people were, in fact, more enfranchised in the North.