How divisive a president was Abraham Lincoln....

[kentuck]

Of course, to the victors belong the spoils and their own version of history. With the currently masterful job of division by the current occupant in the White House, I have thought about what it must have been like in 1860. Did we really have to fight a Civil War? When the people of South Carolina rebelled, it was not specifically about slavery. That "excuse" came later. It was analogous to WMDs changing to democracy in present-day Iraq, in my opinion. However, we can only know what we have been taught unless we were there to experience it first-hand. I wonder how Dubya's division will be portrayed in our history books a hundred years from now.

I'm not saying that Bush is like Lincoln. But, how anyone else thought of the division in our nation where it would get so bad that we would fight a Civil War? And that Abraham Lincoln was a very hated president, especially by those in the South? Any other thoughts on this matter?

[xray s]

1. why fight a civil war

if the red states want to secede tomorrow...let them.

and don't let the door hit them on the ass on the way out.

[FloridaPat]

2. The South officially seceeded from the Union. The Civil War was

to keep them in the Union. Just think - if they had started their own country, Kennedy wouldn't have been shot in Dallas, and no Texans would be president today.

But we really don't act like a country. We act like 50 little countries under 1 big countries. We fight each other for jobs and factories and money. Our little state lines keep us seperate.

[RoyGBiv]

3. This is kinda messed up ...

First, Lincoln, as a personality that embodied too many individual elements that defined the divisiveness of the nation to list, was very divisive. He was probably the most divisive President ever to take office, and I include the Shrub in that, at least at the moment. Unlike the Shrub, however, it wasn't all about him or what he did. His election, and all that meant, was the truly divisive element.

I don't know of any historian, regardless of philosophical persuasion, who would deny this, or even question it too much, even if their individual reasons for saying so might be different. It is a very well documented fact that Lincoln's mere presence in certain places in the country prior to and during the Civil War could generate violent protests. And, well, there's the whole civil war thing.

Did we really have to fight a civil war? Probably. It's the age old, unanswerable question that many talented historians have nonetheless tried very hard to answer. Given the state of society at the time the war took place back through the decade before it, the answer is probably "yes." Change a few things at the founding or at any number of points along the way, probably "no."

The "excuse" did not come later. South Carolina was, in fact, one of the states that explicitly mentioned slavery and issues directly related to slavery in its declarations of causes. Lincoln explicitly and directly stated that his administration would not allow the continued expansion of slavery. Furthermore, unlike WMDs in Iraq, slavery really did exist in the South, and Southern planters really were afraid that Lincoln and his party would bring and end to the institution in their lifetimes.

The prospect of a civil war, over issues related to slavery, had been brewing in the minds of all Americans since at least the 1820's.

[ISUGRADIA]

4. To say that the main reason for the civil war was not slavery is

ridiculous. For god's sakes, look at the previous 30 years up to 1861.

[ISUGRADIA]

5. OH, and unlike WMDs Slavery did exist and the rascist South

did it's best to keep blacks down even after the war oh, pretty much until 1960.

[RoyGBiv]

6. FWIW ...

Racism never was exclusive to the South, and pretty much the entire nation did its level best to "keep blacks down" after the war, particularly after about 1877.

[ISUGRADIA]

7. Racism was never a particular institution to the South

of course, but slavery in the 19th century was. And Southerners did their best through Jim Crow and the Black Codes to keep it that way after the war.

Some of the worst racists were in the North. But the South did its best to stiffle the abolishionist movement.

EDIT spelling

[Yupster]

8. Yes Lincoln was incredibly divisive and

no the Civil War did not need to be fought.

This is just my opinion of course, a meek former history teacher and textbook author. Many other much more gloried historians no doubt would disagree with me.

As another poster already pointed out, the country for 30 years was split over slavery before 1860. Both political parties were well aware of this split and did much to try to keep it from cleaving. For instance, each presidential candidate, whether Whig or Democrat would choose a running mate from the opposite region of the country. Even in 1860 when the Democratic Party split regionally, still Stephen Douglas, the Northern Democratic candidate ran with a Senator from Georgia as his VP, and John Breckinridge, the Southern Democratic candidate ran with a running mate from Oregon. The Republicans broke this tradition by running Lincoln with another outspoken anti-slavery candidiate from Maine. Same thing with cabinet members.

So I blame Lincoln for running as a strictly regional candidiate.

Once Lincoln was elected, South Carolina immediately seceeded. But that was all.

Other southern states were aguing and considering secession. It was in this period where Senator Crittenden of Kentucky chaired a special committee of thirteen senators to see if compromise could be worked out to keep the southern states in the union. On the committee were Crittenden, a Whig, five Republicans and seven Democrats. The biggest names in the senate were in attendance, William Seward of New york, Stephen Douglas of Illinois, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, and Robert Toombs of Georgia.

The committee decided early on that there was no sense putting together a plan unless the Republicans agreed to it, and that was the problem. The president-elect was touring the big cities of the north holding large rallies on his meandering way to Washington. Seward asked again and again for instructions, but he was told there would be none. The president-elect would endorse no compromise language. The committee met through Christmas, and then went home. Within two weeks of the committee's failure southern states started to leave. Six more left between Jan 9 and Feb 1.

I blame Lincoln for not touring union areas of the south and border states and not working with the Crittenden Committee. There were southern politicians who were working with good will to keep the nation together, and he didn't help them. Davis by the way did not go to Montgomery where the new Confederate government was organizing like most well known southern politicians did. He went home. He was certainly surprised to find himself chosen as the country's first president. It was not a job he wanted.

Even after the seven states formed the Confederacy I do not believe war was inevitable. Four of the five most populous southern states had not seceeded. They were Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Without them it was hard to see the Confederacy as a viable country that would last long on its own.

Then Lincoln made a diplomatic blunder of Bushian proportions. After Fort Sumpter, he called forth the militias, and though blatanly unconstitutional, he gave each state a quota of how many soldiers each would have to provide for the invasion of the south.

Well, Tennessee had just put the issue up to a vote of its people, and by a very close vote they voted not to call a secession convention, but to stay in the union. The biggest prize by far, Virginia was also undecided. Well, that call for soldiers made each state choose sides, and Tennessee hastily scheduled another vote of the people, and forced to choose one side or the other, the voters of Tennessee voted 80-20 % to leave the union. Virginia did the same as did North Carolina. Kentucky refused to provide soldiers and declared its neutrality.

North Carolina lost more men in the war than any other state. Can you imagine how differently the Civil War would have been if Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, JEB Stuart, AP Hill, Richard Ewell, Jubal Early, and George Pickett hadn't joined the Confederate Army when Virginia left the union? Hell, Jubal Early was a delegate to the Virginia secession convention and voted not to secede. Only a true bull in the China shop diplomat like Lincoln could have put Jubal Early in Confederate gray.

Anyway, I blame Lincoln for mishandling the diplomacy that led to Virginia, Tennessee and North carolina leaving the union.

In the end, Lincoln always also had the option of just letting the confederacy go in peace.

In conclusion, no the Civil War was not necessary. It could have been avoided I believe but for a president who won with just less than 40 % of the popular vote, but acted like he had earned a landslide mandate.

On edit, the almost 40 % Lincoln got was inflated because South Carolina held no popular election for president in 1860. Assuming there were probably not 1 % of Lincoln votes in the South Carolina voting population, had that state voted, Lincoln's overall percentage would have probably dropped to 37 or 38 %. Just thought that was an interesting aside.

[DerekG]

9. And what of chattel slavery?

I would certainly agree with your supposition that Lincoln was not the most willing of diplomats. Still, in the absence of a war you deem unnecessary, we're left with some four million human beings who were held in bondage. As a history teacher, you know full well that slavery was not on the wane; without the war, emancipation may very well have been forestalled to 1885 (it was only a matter of time before industry eclipsed agriculture).

Yes, slavery is not often cited as the impetus for the Civil War, but we must learn to plumb the depths of that most insidious phrase: state's rights. (I do wonder which circle of Hell John Calhoun was consigned to.) Slavery was at the heart of the divide; it would be no coincidence that in the second half of the war, Union soldiers would march to "John Brown's Body." Not a conflict between good and evil, mind you, but, just as in WWII, one side had some semblance of a moral high ground (and it wasn't the one trumpeting "Dixie").

However apocalypical it may sound, 'twas better for America to burn than for chattel slavery--one of the greatest evils in modern history--to last another year.