Replies

A line in a speech is not a “deal”. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated most of the confederate states had already succeeded. That was a last ditch plea to get them to return and maintain the union. The Southern pols had whipped up a hysteria that painted Lincoln as an ape who would take their slaves away. Kind of like the Russia-Trump media today there was no basis in fact, and Lincoln was pointing out that he had no authority to do so. What really bothered the southern slaveowner aristocracy was the long term effects of the Republican platform of no new slave states. They could see that eventually there would be so many free states that they could amend the constitution to abolish slavery.

Of course once the south started the war, it was moot. The whole strategy of the south was to force the north to negotiate, and Lincoln refused.

So you are going to split hairs that a "plea to get them to return" is somehow different from offering them a deal?

It isn't my choice of verbiage to which you object, it is the fact that I have pointed out that Lincoln's principles, and therefore the cause for which he killed 750,000 people and destroyed huge swaths of land and impoverished millions of people, were "malleable."

Yes, Lincoln's principles were malleable. They would change to suit his current political needs. In his speech to Congress in 1848 he clearly said that all people had a right to leave a larger government and become independent. He called it a "sacred right" to do so.

But that principle also ended up on the chopping block when it came to what he saw as his political best interests. By 1860, he had thoroughly reversed his position on this "sacred right."

Lincoln was going to keep slavery so long as the South remained under Washington's economic control. It was their independence from Washington that was the real cause of war, not whether or not they and the five Union states had slavery.

Lincoln could compromise on keeping slavery permanently. He adamantly refused to cooperate with the idea that states could escape his economic control.

Of course once the south started the war, it was moot.

The South did not start the War. Lincoln started the war. He attacked first. He sent a war fleet to Charleston with Orders to attack the Confederate forces there. When the warships showed up in Charleston, the Confederates saw this as a deliberate attack, and so they started firing at the fort.

Lincoln swung first, but the Confederates connected first.

Hugin to DiogenesLamp: "A line in a speech is not a 'deal'.
By the time Lincoln was inaugurated most of the confederate states had already succeeded.
That was a last ditch plea to get them to return and maintain the union.
The Southern pols had whipped up a hysteria that painted Lincoln as an ape who would take their slaves away.
Kind of like the Russia-Trump media today there was no basis in fact, and Lincoln was pointing out that he had no authority to do so."

Thanks for a great set of posts, sir.