Why Illinois is Broke.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Nope. If Lincoln had gone to the Congress for money to fight a war to end slavery in the southern states he would have been laughed out of the room. If the South had decided to wait it out after Lincoln's election to see if the Union was really ready act to outlaw slavery there would not have been the firing on Ft. Sumpter and who knows when the war would have started. Seems to me Southern politicians would have been smarter to wait and have time to prepare for a war rather than jump into the fire when they really didn't know what was going to happen or when it might.

Lincoln said it himself in his August 1862 letter to Horace Greeley:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."

Clearly "the cause" was preservation of the Union and ending secessionist treason. "The Cause" was not to end slavery, although preserving slavery certainly was "The Cause" in the South.

I believe after Lincoln's comments to Greeley became public, it was Wendell Phillips who referred to Lincoln as "A first-rate second-rate man." Doesn't sound like Phillips was recognizing any Union call to end slavery to me.

I think it boils down to: no secessionitis, no war.

once again the issue was over the expansion of slavery into the new territories of the western United States

read a history book

Lincoln was against the expansion (he was not for abolition in 1860)...his election caused the South to secede.

[icenine]

to quote wikipedia, which obviously has not drank the revisionist koolaid:




The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, the War of the Rebellion, or simply the Civil War (see naming), was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 in the United States after several[3] Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the "Confederacy" or the "South"). The states that remained were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories.

[Zeke]

In my opinion, Lincoln's primary motivation was to preserve the Union. In order to do that, he had to address slavery.

1. We were past the point of soft shoe.
2. It had become untenable.

There weren't a whole lot of choices even if he was the most pro-slave individual ever elected.