On 4/6/07, Walt Wayman <hiwayman@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> I've always been of the opinion that if states joined the Union voluntarily,
> they should be allowed to leave it voluntarily. I'm not a Lincoln admirer. He
> invaded the South and started a war that killed nearly a million men. My
> grandmother absolutely hated him. Just go to Gettysburg and around sunset
> stand on the hill overlooking where Picket's charge got slaughtered. If you
> know the history of the Civil War, I guarantee you that you'll have tears in
> your eyes. There were over 51,000 casualties in that one battle. More of us
> Murkins were killed in the War of Northern Invasion than in WW1 and WW2
> combined.
>
> Walt
Yes, Lincoln was the confederacy's worst nightmare. Aside from Grant,
Lincoln was the only other general with the determination to meet his
goals.
But your second favorite general sort of agreed with you about
secession. In his autobiography, Grant said that he thought the
original states should have the right to discuss secession, since they
were parties to the original bargain, but he was particularly galled
by Texas, for which Americans of the Union died in two wars (of highly
questionable morality) to secure its independence. Texas, and others
of the non-original confederate states, petitioned the *Union* to join
and duly joined that union. They didn't create that Union, but asked
to join it once created. Very different things. For Texas and other
states like it to secede seemed to Grant to have moral difficulties
above and beyond the simple question of secession itself, which
Lincoln characterized as "the essence of anarchy." Aside from seeing
the sheer illogic of creating a union from which secession is a
possibility, Lincoln had the misfortune of being a more than commonly
honest lawyer, sworn to uphold the agreement that laid out the precise
stipulations of that union, which we call the Constitution.
Anyway, being a pacifist, I like to think about what might have been, such as:
1) Had the slave states been allowed to secede peacefully
2) Had Lincoln lived into the reconstruction period
I am dumbfounded when I ponder how many good men gave their lives to
preserve the union (thinking purely as a northerner). As a matter of
self-interest, there couldn't have been much to be gained. By a
careful study of the numbers at the time, 50% of all males fit to
serve from Iowa volunteered. The governor at the time (Kirkwood)
ponied up the cash himself to support the enlistment because
Washington was so slow in getting funds to the frontier. For many of
these fellows, their service became the first actual occasion to see
enslaved African-Americans. The idea of fighting for abolition was
intellectual at most. Maybe that's what made it potent, I don't know.
Consider this verse from the "Battle Hymn of the Republic:"
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me.
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
His truth is marching on.
The free states had that thought rolling around in their heads. The
slave states had "Dixie."
Separated from the free states, I believe the slave states would have
become a renegade nation, being purely in existence by reason of the
morally reprehensible institution of slavery. Joined to the North,
the moral difficulty of slavery was somewhat diffused. I believe it
would have been a matter of just a few years as the South (doubtless
tariffed, embargoed, and sanctioned) would have struggled to find some
substitution for the manufacturing of the North and a remedy for their
loss of markets before slavery would have been abolished because of
its own sheer, crushing weight, both moral and economic.
The war probably created a quicker pathway to change in some ways, but
its beneficial effect even for African-Americans has to be questioned.
The pattern of emancipation in the North (you do all know that there
were slaves in ALL the original colonies, don't you?) was gentle and
caring. Connecticut, which was the first colony/state to emancipate
slaves, established a social safety net for them that obtained until
the last of them died around 1848. Had the South been left to make
the decision for themselves, it might have created similar
circumstances for ex-slaves, instead of making them proxies for the
frustrations and hatred engendered by the North, first by war and then
by the so-called Reconstruction.
Once the war was over, the North was such a military monster that it
had nothing to do but turn its attention to the complete and utter
conquest of native Americans territory. What moral superiority the
North might have had going into the fight it lost very quickly in an
aftermath of brutality toward the native population that would make
Nathan Bedford Jones blush. That's the way it is with wars, for the
most part.
I think Lincoln would have been dead by natural causes within a couple
years of his actual death by bullet. So I don't think he would have
had as much of an effect at achieving the reconciliation he sought in
the second inaugural, but who knows, he might have. Other than the
war itself, the death of Lincoln was probably the worst blow to the
South. It was also probably a blow indirectly to native populations
as well.
I think generally Lincoln was a freethinker going into the war,
probably a Deist much like Jefferson, who thought that God was not
really an operator in the daily running of a free-wheeling universe.
By the end of the war, I think he believed that the war itself was
expressly a visitation of divine vengeance upon the entire nation.
War is sheerly hell on earth. There are never winners.
I would have liked to have tried the secession alternative. I think
it would have turned out a lot better.
Joel W.
New France
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