Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99
Oh, I agree he's not a diety. But he's got quite a temple on the mall anyway.
He went to war because he was told it would be quickly won, while ducking it would have been difficult and probably politically ruinous. A 'police action' was what was expected; the army would march south and restore order. He had no experience to tell him how bad it could be, and the experienced guys were very confident.
The Habaes Corpus suspension was completely justified and proper under the circumstances, except the Constitution gives Congress the power to do it, not the President. But Congress ducked making it legal, preferring to leave Lincoln stuck with the onus.
Now I'm OK with criticism of Lincoln in principle, if well-founded. But most of it is trite and tainted with Southern Revisionism.
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He went to war because after he was elected the South seceded because they were upset that a President opposed to the EXTENSION of slavery to the new states was in office. When the Federal government tried to resupply the base on Ft Sumter they were attacked by the South.
You sort of make it sound like Lincoln made the decision on his own. His adminstration called it The War Of The Rebellion.
I do agree with you however in your main points. All the revisionist arguments are bullshit.
Pretty soon the "slavery did not cause the war" bullshit will rear its neanderthal head.