And by the way, what was the point of the author in resurrecting HL Menken just to have him mIquote Lincoln and then castigate Lincoln for making a statement he never made?
I think the southern states had been itching to succeed for a while. Lincoln’s election gave them the excuse to do it sooner rather than later.
We Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech: “It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense.” Lincoln said the soldiers sacrificed their lives “to the cause of self-determination — that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.” Mencken says: “It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves.”
Your assertion is this statement is factually incorrect?
Sure makes sense to me.
As to your first assertion. I only recall one example of consideration for succession. Also you say “1864 states were already....” they were 1 year away from losing a horrible unconstitutional suppression defense. See the paragraph below:
After initial problems, Davis’s government grew stronger as he learned to use executive power to consolidate control of the armed forces and manpower distribution. But some Southern governors resisted Davis’s centralization and tried to keep their men and resources at home. Although Davis used authority effectively, the insistence on preserving states’ rights plagued him constantly. Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, an early dissident, for example, sulked in his native Georgia and finally urged its secession from the Confederacy.