I pretty much went the other way. If you consider that it was a revolutionary situation and things were truly falling apart, with the Confederacy poised to take over as much of the slave states as they could grab and to weaken the rest of the country as much as they could manage, Lincoln's actions may not look so tyrannical or abusive.
Faced with a secessionist threat in our time any government wouldn't behave so differently from Lincoln's -- not to impose a tyranny, just to prevent anarchy and the surrender of citizens and territory to a rival movement that was willing to use force to get its way: for the Confederate government infringed on basic freedoms of habeus corpus, speech, assembly, and the press as well as the US government, if not more so.
I think the South had a lot more points in their favor and Union folks see the noble cause of abolishing slavery to “OK” everything that was done in its name.
Perhaps, unionists did excuse a lot in the name of abolishing slavery. But what I notice here is people associating secession and the Confederacy with liberty and excusing whatever the CSA did -- including starting the war and strongly supporting slavery -- by claiming that it was all in the name of liberty. If you hear enough of that talk, maybe you might change your mind again.
Comical poppycock bump.
Well, I dont see a need to ever break with the Constitution, even in times of war. It is a slippery slope.
I can see both sides of this and both have very good points. The Southerners condemn Sherman but seem to forget Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson. Sherman didnt kill non-combatants, but Quantrill and Anderson did with gusto. But Quantrill wasnt part of the CSA, but agents of it.
The North was not angels. Sherman march is an exmaple. But Sherman knew that if you wanted a war to end quickly, you punish people who support it.
If the USA was so cruel, why wasnt its leaders hung after the war, as was often the case in Europe? Hell, we even name Military bases and schools after them. In another country, Lee would have been strung up.
The Civil War is still fought. Hard feelings still can be found down South towards Yankees long after the last grave was dug.