Posted on 04/14/2016 9:36:26 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
The true push for war came from Sumner, Stevens, Stanton and the rest of the Radical Republicans. Lincoln wasn’t fanatical like they were but he allowed them to pressure him into war.
As was Jefferson Davis, and for a longer period than Lincoln was.
It was Lincoln’s decision to call up 75,000 troops for an invasion rather than let events play out short of war.
Having bombarded Sumter into surrender then war was what the Southern states had already decided on. Lincoln's call for troops was merely in response to that.
The battlefields are in the south, not the north, a fact ignored since its meaning is obvious on its face.
I'm not sure what your obvious meaning is. The South started the war. The fact that you can't then keep your enemy off your territory is hardly your enemy's fault.
Lincoln’s decision for war, and he made this on his own Congress being out of session, pushed the wavering border states into joining the Confederacy, guaranteeing a long and bloody war.
Again, the case could be made that war was forced upon him.
That's funny - usually it's the lost causers who claim that it was Lincoln who agitated for war and the others who tried to hold him back.
This thread needs some music.
Black Betty - Ram Jam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IousTfdD-Uo
And for the liberal fags up north.
Neil Young - Southern Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVRxdPWV3RM
And then we could just “Turn it up”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GxWmSVv-cY
Being from the south isn’t about having slaves.
It’s about saying “F88k you” to anybody that tries to tell us what to do. Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter.
Not crazy about neil but hell yea on Ram Jam and Sweet Home
” Again, the case could be made that war was forced upon him. “
He wasn’t that weak willed. The drive for war was coming from Radical Republicans like Charles Sumner and Massachusetts Gov Andrew. They had been demanding war before Lincoln even took office, before Ft Sumter. Lincoln had some of them in his Cabinet. He made the bad decision of giving them what they had been demanding.
Pelham: "The drive for war was coming from Radical Republicans like Charles Sumner and Massachusetts Gov Andrew."
Again, I ask: how do you feel about Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941?
Did FDR "trick" the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor so Roosevelt could declare war and rescue Churchill in defeating the Nazis?
Does that make FDR "nefarious", deserving our undying hatred, and calls to refight WWII, this time making certain those "nefarious" Yankees get the lickin' they so richly deserve?
No, of course not, that's sheer insanity.
Whether FDR "tricked" the Japanese or not, their attack on Pearl Harbor was their own initiative, and was certainly an act of war, for which they bear responsibility for its consequences.
Likewise, after months of Confederate provocations for war, their attack on Fort Sumter was a clear act of war, for which they bear the responsibility.
And just to be certain nobody could misunderstand, just three weeks later, May 6, 1861, the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, while sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
All this happened before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and before any Union army invaded a single Confederate state.
Jefferson Davis could easily have avoided war by delaying his assault on Fort Sumter until such a time as the Confederacy was much better prepared to win it.
Indeed, at any time before April 9, 1865 Davis could have asked for peace on much better terms than "unconditional surrender", but consistently refused.
So 100% of responsibility for both starting and continuing Civil War belongs to Davis & Co.
I seriously tried to read one of their screeds, and just can't get through it.
The nonsense is so thick & deep it's unreadable, at least for me.
But, maybe there are other such books somewhat less offensive in tone & content, and more focused on historical reality?
Let me know what you find. ;-)
No, Lincoln gave orders there would be no war unless Confederates started it.
Which they did, at which point Lincoln's constitutional responsibility was to defeat them.
Which he did.
This is not rocket science, FRiend.
Anyone who wants to can figure it out.
So Lincoln issued orders for the Confederate assault at Fort Sumter?
**NOT***
Pelham: "...if [Buchanan] had [responded to Star of the West with force] and had started the civil war himself he would be regarded as a Great President instead of the goat that he usually is."
President Buchanan was a Democrat from central Pennsylvania, not so far from my home.
Today you can see Confederate flags flying on houses in many small towns near here.
Back in those days, Buchanan was known as a "Doughfaced Northerner" because of his Southern sympathies.
Buchanan did not believe secessionists had acted lawfully, but he also did not believe the Federal Government should use force to stop them.
Lincoln shared that view, except that by contrast, he interpreted Confederate violence against Union property as rebellion, and the Confederate military assault on Fort Sumter as war.
As such, Lincoln had a constitutional responsibility to defeat them, which he did.
Pelham: "It was Lincoln’s decision to call up 75,000 troops for an invasion rather than let events play out short of war."
Confederate provocations "short of war" were the events from January through April 12, 1861 -- seizures of dozens of major Federal properties, forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.
But Davis' assault on Fort Sumter was a clear act of war which Lincoln could not ignore.
Further: if Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops on April 15, 1861 was an "act of war", then the Confederacy's call-up of 100,000 troops on March 6 was the real beginning of Civil War.
And even after Lincoln's call, Davis could still have asked for a peaceful resolution.
But he never did, not ever.
Instead, he called up another 400,000 Confederate soldiers, formally declared war on the United States and sent military aid into Union Missouri.
So Civil War was the Confederacy's choice, to which Lincoln responded appropriately.
Pelham: "The battlefields are in the south, not the north, a fact ignored since its meaning is obvious on its face."
No, the first battlefields, in early 1861, were in Union states, like Missouri and Maryland, where Confederates assaulted Union troops, resulting in dozens killed.
Further, the Confederate military threat against Washington DC was immediate in early 1861, and constant throughout the war.
The first Union "invasion" of Virginia, and first Confederate battle death (June 10, 1861), did not come until after Virginia formally voted to join the Confederacy and its declared war on the United States.
Pelham: "Lincoln’s decision for war, and he made this on his own Congress being out of session, pushed the wavering border states into joining the Confederacy, guaranteeing a long and bloody war."
In fact, none of the four Border States ever voted to join the Confederacy -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri -- though all did provide small numbers of troops to Confederate armies.
But Davis' assault on Fort Sumter, and Lincoln's response, did drive the four Upper South states -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.
These had previously refused to join the Deep South in secession, but now felt forced to chose, and so did chose to protect slavery within the Confederacy.
Finally, the choice for "a long and bloody war" was strictly the Confederacy's, which could have, on any given day, asked for peace on terms much more favorable than the Unconditional Surrender they fought on, and on, and on, to finally achieve.
In 1861 that depended, big-time, on where exactly in "the South" you lived.
In Appalachian counties of western Virginia, eastern Tennessee & western North Carolina there were virtually no slaves, and those Southerners remained loyal to the Union, throughout.
But in Deep South King Cotton counties, from South Carolina through Texas, slave-ownership approached 50% of white families and they became die-hard secessionists.
So the correlation between slave-ownership and secessionism was virtually 100% -- the more people who held slaves, the more strongly they supported secession.
By contrast, the numbers of Union troops provided by Unionists in Southern slave-holding states was enough to replace every Northern soldier killed in the war.
Wow, someone’s been busy this morning ;’}
I usually look for junk like this at the library first before I waste any money on it - but they’re typically so obscure that if I “want” to read it I have to buy a copy.
And I’m not adverse to sampling other POV and I’ve even churned my way through dilorenzo but I rarely add biased and subjective crap like that to my library.
You’re predictable if nothing else.
Truth is often predictable.
Conflating what you wish to believe with truth may work for you but it doesn’t convince anyone else.
Ignoring the truth in favor of half-cooked mythologies may work for you but it doesn’t convince anyone else.
“History is written by the victors” and children believe it to be the truth. Of course in their defense they don’t know any better.
And losers write the myths. Now we're clear on our respective positions.
Good for you.
No one cares.
Obviously Churchill’s irony is lost on you. Not that it is a surprise.
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