I’m sorry BroJoeK, I stand behind my contention that war was inevitable, once the Southern states attempted to secede. The mere fact that Buchanan, while expressing his opinion that secession was unlawful, did not militarily contest the secession, merely goes a long way to indicating why he’s at the lower end (if not the bottom) of any best presidents list. There were other reasons why the US did not militarily contest secession in January, though. A big part of this reason is that the US Army of the time was very small, and mostly posted to little forts all over the West.
Once Lincoln took office, he was determined to maintain the Union by any means necessary and, barring the states returning to the fold voluntarily, this meant war. His biggest problem was convincing the states to supply troops for the cause. In order to get Northern (and European) popular opinion behind him, he needed the Confederacy to be seen as the aggressor. Fortunately for him, Jefferson Davis, Governor Pickens, and General Beauregard were happy to oblige. We attempted to resupply Fort Sumter, they shot first, and the rest was history.
What Lincoln needed was a pretext for war. He found it with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, err, I mean the Fort Sumter incident.
To whom is this statement attributed: “You can fool some of the people all of the time . . .” ?
Team Cuda: “Once Lincoln took office, he was determined to maintain the Union by any means necessary and, barring the states returning to the fold voluntarily, this meant war.”
Right there is your false premise.
In fact, as clearly stated in his First Inaugural, Lincoln did not intend to go to war, until or unless the Confederacy started it.
What Lincoln intended, on March 4, 1861, was to continue Buchanan’s policy of supporting the remaining US troops in Union forts in Confederate states, and, as much as possible, maintain the functions of Federal government, such as Post Office and import duty collections.
Of course, with perfect 20-20 hindsight, you may say that these were unacceptable conditions which must necessarily lead to war, but the fact is: they were what Lincoln saw as his Constitutional duty, and in his mind, the choice for war must be made by Confederates.
As, indeed, it was.
Do you disagree?