1240 sats \ 27 replies \ @windward 15 Jan \ on: On Lincoln history
What would compel you to say this?
this is simply ahistorical.
It ignores the reality that South Carolina published their declaration of independence December 1860 in reaction to Lincoln being elected to office that November on a platform of not expanding slavery to new states.
In those documents they explicitly state that the unwillingness of the other states to enforce the Fugitive Slave act is one of the reasons why they chose to leave. Revoking it is not something that would have had an effect on the war - and not something that Lincoln could have done as they had already left once he entered office January 1861.
The first battle of the Civil War occurred at Fort Sumter in April 1861 when Confederates fired on the fort after a months long blockade.
Prior to this, the Confederate States and the Union were in peace talks negotiating different parcels of land - Fort Sumter was one of these disputes that had not yet been settled and the Confederates sought to take it by force.
Lincoln did many things - but being responsible for the Civil War isn't one of them.
The fault lies solely with slave owners who wanted the state to protect their ability to buy and sell other human beings and were willing to shoot other people over it.
Thanks for giving this necessary added context. I'm not a big history buff so it gave me a chance to learn something new. Here's a link to South Carolina's declaration of independence if anyone else is interested in reading it:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
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I think you're smuggling in an assumption that the entirety of the Civil War had to happen because of South Carolina's actions. My understanding is that there were states that were not interested in leaving the union until war broke out.
As I see it, slavery ended everywhere else in the west without needing a war, so it's not a given that the south's defense of slavery justified war. Also, I don't know how Lincoln is absolved of any fault when "preserving the Union" is an unjust cause for war.
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I think you're smuggling in an assumption that the entirety of the Civil War had to happen because of South Carolina's actions.
The Civil War didn't "have to happen".
If slave owning elites didn't want their industry protected on land they didn't own (yet to be made states and territories) there would be no cause for war.
You will not find a single declaration for secession that does not include their desire to protect the institution slavery as their cause for leave, if not the main focus of the document.
My understanding is that there were states that were not interested in leaving the union until war broke out.
If we consider opening conflict to start on April 1861 - as Fort Sumter is considered to be the first battle of the conflict- South Carolina (December 20, 1860), Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861) had already published their documents of secession before the blockade occurred. There were multiple attempts to have peaceful negotiations beforehand on to try and get the demands of the then seceeded states met during this time period.
Virginia joined the week after the battle of Fort Sumter (April 17, 1861), and Arkansas (May 6, 1861), North Carolina (May 20, 1861), Tennessee (June 8, 1861) followed.
The majority of the states that would form the CSA had already left before South Carolina started, shooting during negotiations and after starting a blockade.
As I see it, slavery ended everywhere else in the west without needing a war
This is for many reasons, but(generally speaking) it is because the slave owning class didn't want to start one and were willing to do away with the prospect of owning human beings in favor of other ventures.
In some countries (including some slave owners in the US post civil war) they were compensated for their "losses" - and so were able to transition more easily into other markets.
Also, I don't know how Lincoln is absolved of any fault
"Lincoln is absolved of fault" is not a statement you read in my statements nor is it something I agree with. "Lincoln not being responsible for the civil war" is what I stated to - and is what I stand by.
"preserving the Union" is an unjust cause for war.
The Confederates would not agree with you, as many of them wanted to preserve the Union too - they just wanted to also own human beings even more than they wanted to remain. They were explicit about this and explained themselves in real-time.
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I'm fine rephrasing my point to conform with your wording. Lincoln bears some of the responsibility for the Civil War, because the war didn't have to happen. He chose to escalate the conflict and, whether or not the Confederates agree, "preserving the union" is still not a just cause of war. (Also, I didn't see where the confederates indicated a willingness to go to war in order to preserve the union.)
Do you think compensating slave owners wouldn't have worked? I believe people have estimated what the cost of that would have been and that it's much less than the cost of the war. Even if it hadn't worked, the Union would have been the Confederacy's most natural trade partner and over time consumer pressure would have made Confederate slavery economically unprofitable.
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He chose to escalate the conflict
The federal government made multiple conessions to the slave owning class for decades. The core catylyst for secession was the refusal to expand slavery beyond the existing states that had it as an institution - various groups threatened organizing secession since the compromise of 1850-all the way up until South Carolina started blockading & firing on Fort Sumter.
By the time Fort Sumter is being blockaded, he has been president for all of 4 months - and they left in reaction to things he hadn't yet done( abolished slavery/promising to abolish).
How did he 'escalate' things? As a head of state, should he have let his soldiers get shot at and held hostage without consequence? What of the black soldiers that the Confederates refused to give up during the negotiations after the battle as even then the Union made efforts to stave off total conflict - The Confederates took them as property & refused to trade them for Confederate prisoners - what soverign nation would allow that to occur without consequence?
Do you think compensating slave owners wouldn't have worked?
Without going into how morally rephrehensible it is to compensate someone for the loss of labor from freeing their slaves - this was tried. It was offered multiple times over the years prior to Lincoln's election in various funding methods, and they refused because the Confederates valued the ability to own other humans and create a permanent underclass more.
In the US, the regulation of slavery was primarily a function of the states - not the federal government. In Washington DC (which is directly controlled by the federal government) they did enact compensated emancipation - and this was done by Lincoln.
Lincoln as a congressman was also in favor of compensated emancipation by the federal govt. to the states - and as president during the civil war he drafted a compensated emancipation secession act for Delaware (a slave state that didn't secede) and also national legislation but by then the Southern states didn't care as this was late 1861.
over time consumer pressure would have made Confederate slavery economically unprofitable
You are correct - and slave owning elites knew this, which is why they wanted to make sure that slavery could expand into the yet to be established states out west to preserve the institution of slavery for as long as possible in to ensure that their slave labor could remain competitive with free labor.
And when Lincoln won on a platform of not expanding slavery west, it put a cap on the potential markets they could work in, and permanently shifted things in favor fo the Union economically. Combine this with the free states not enforcing the Fugitive Slave act (meaning that any slave who walked onto a free state was legally free & not forced to return to bondage) and you have a situation where your captive labor force has an escape route. And the southern states were preferentially dependent on slave labor.
The only thing that would have stopped the war would have been the right to own slaves being enshrined in the Constitution.
They actually tried that too - and it passed -but by that time the Confederates were shooting, so it was a moot point.
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should he have let his soldiers get shot at and held hostage without consequence
There's a lot of room between no consequences and one of the ugliest wars in human history (to that point).
The only thing that would have stopped the war would have been the right to own slaves being enshrined in the Constitution.
I doubt there would have been a war if Lincoln had acknowledged the Confederacy's independence, so that claim seems a tad too strong.
It seems like we agree about slavery being on the way out had there been no war. If slavery was soon to be abolished anyway, the only real point of the war was preserving the union, which again is not a just cause of war.
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There's a lot of room between no consequences and one of the ugliest wars in human history (to that point).
One that the Confederates started, and were proud to start, whose underpinnings were in motion before Lincoln was ever president. It's simply not something a singular individual could have changed the course of with any one act - and it again would require the Confederates to not escalate tensions (which is something they did not want to do).
I doubt there would have been a war if Lincoln had acknowledged the Confederacy's independence, so that claim seems a tad too strong.
Why would you recognize the independence of an organization who steals your property & holds your people in slavery? And mind - the confederacy refused negotiations - acknowledging independence would also be denying their own national sovereignty - not something I see a statist doing. If the Confederates did not open fire, and participated in discussions, maybe things would have been different. Avoiding conflict simply wasn't something that the CSA wanted.
If slavery was soon to be abolished anyway, the only real point of the war was preserving the union, which again is not a just cause of war.
This ignores why the Confederates fought the war - which was to have the right to run a slave society, have that power recognized even in places that did not want it, and have the power of the state to keep it going as long as possible.
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Why would you recognize the independence of an organization who steals your property & holds your people in slavery?
I didn't say Lincoln should have done that. I'm countering your claim that there was only one way to avoid war. However, the answer to that question is "to avoid one of the worst wars in human history".
and have the power of the state to keep it going as long as possible.
That's a totally fair point. There's no shortage of evil regimes continuing evil practices even when they make no economic sense. Perhaps that would have gone on for a long time in this counterfactual.
I'm just not as convinced the CSA wanted a military conflict with the USA as you are. I'm also not as convinced as you that Lincoln was just a powerless bystander. I see both governments as pretty bad actors pursuing fundamentally illiberal goals.
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I'm just not as convinced the CSA wanted a military conflict with the USA as you are
You would be if you read what Confederates said about their situation:
From the Cornerstone Speech:
The process of disintegration in the old Union may be expected to go on with almost absolute certainty if we pursue the right course. We are now the nucleus of a growing power which, if we are true to ourselves, our destiny, and high mission, will become the controlling power on this continent. .... The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Wanting to be the controlling power on the continent by an illiberal state implies violence.
At this time, Fort Sumpter is already under blockade. The Confederates would shoot first, literally 2 weeks after the speech is given. This is after they were offered compensation & legal protection and 7 of the 11 total states that made the CSA had already seceded.
To argue that the CSA didn't want conflict is to ignore their own actions, and their written and publicly documented thoughts at the time.
I'm also not as convinced as you that Lincoln was just a powerless bystander.
Also not a thing I said. He simply would not have been able to prevent the outbreak of war, solely because the CSA did not have a real interest in negotiating. They planned to secede before he ever took office as president, and he actively supported measures to stave off conflict as a Congressman.
To say that he singlehandedly could have done anything to change the outcome ignores the many future Confederates who did want that outcome and were actively preparing for it. One cannot avoid conflict while tied to another who actively seeks it.
I see both governments as pretty bad actors pursuing fundamentally illiberal goals.
saying that both governments are bad actors doesn't change the fact that saying 'Lincoln started the civil war' or 'Lincoln is responsible for the conflict' is on multiple levels, factually wrong and requires you to ignore history on both sides of the conflict.