I think it was the shipping moguls, Insurance people, warehousing people, manufacturing people.
In short, I think it was everyone who was making money off of the South's trade with Europe."
And every one, without exception, was Democrat -- social friends, political allies & business partners to the Southern slave-power -- who supported the South and voted with them in Congress.
DiogenesLamp: "I think Lincoln actually hated slavery, but I am less sure about this than I was at one time, because i've seen so many examples of him massaging the appearance of his conduct to place it in a better light."
Young Lincoln's parents were anti-slavery, it's one reason they left Kentucky for Indiana.
Lincoln hated slavery, but also recognized the Constitution protected it, and there was only so much that could be done to restrict it.
DiogenesLamp: "He was from Kentucky, and I believe he had an uncle that had slaves, and so it's a little unclear how he might have developed a hatred for slavery having grown up amongst it."
Lincoln's ancestors moved from Massachusetts to eventually Virginia & Kentucky by 1780.
Some of the wealthier owned slaves -- his Uncle Mordecai is said to have owned "a slave", while his father's Uncle Isaac may have owned 40 slaves.
But Lincoln's parents were never well-off and, more important, they belonged to a strict Baptist church which opposed slavery.
When young Lincoln's family moved from Kentucky to Indiana, Lincoln said there were two reasons and one was slavery.
So Lincoln was taught anti-slavery as a child.
DiogenesLamp: "I now believe this may have been an artifice meant to appeal to the voting segment he saw as his path to power "
Hardly!
In January 1837 Lincoln was not yet 28 years old and was serving in the Illinois state legislature.
A proposal came up for vote: condemning abolitionism and abolitionist societies.
The vote in the Illinois Senate was 18 to 0, in the House 77 to 6.
So clearly the wave of the political future in Illinois in 1837 was to support slavery and oppose abolitionists.
Lincoln was one of the six House members who voted "no".
DiogenesLamp: "He may have projected this as his public persona, and perhaps he even convinced himself over time that this was correct, but it seems strange that he would eschew his own culture and embrace that of others. "
This just has to be DiogenesLamp speaking of himself, projecting his own experiences onto Lincoln, typical Democrat.
The fact is that Lincoln was taught anti-slavery as a child and opposed it publicly from an early age, though he did also acknowledge the law and Constitution.
DiogenesLamp: "You could also look at Joseph Stalin as the instrument of God in defeating the Nazis.
But if you look at Joseph Stalin in that way, it becomes unclear why God would work through such an evil man who murdered more people than did the Nazis."
In fact, one reason Stalin's people were willing to fight & die against Nazis was that Stalin allowed them, for the first time, to openly worship in churches.
It is also the fact that Stalin, unlike Hitler, did not focus his insane hatreds on God's people, Jews.
That is something God would take notice of, imho, in judging the lesser of two evils.
DiogenesLamp: "Maybe Stalin wasn't the instrument of God, and perhaps Lincoln wasn't either?
I've noted in these discussions how much personal suffering the Lincoln family endured during the war years, and i've expressed bafflement that God would so badly treat a man doing God's work."
And you've been smacked down every time, but totally ignore the rebukes!
In fact virtually nobody in Lincoln's time lived the idyllic live we take for granted today.
Many children died young, many spouses suffered illnesses, physical & mental.
Jefferson Davis especially endured many family disasters.
See this link (post #1299) for a summary.
DiogenesLamp: "One would think God would at least shield and protect a righteous man from tragedy and his enemies."
God had serious work for Lincoln to do.
When that work was complete God called him Home.
DiogenesLamp: "I finally started to realize the truth because I became aware of two pieces of information that didn't make any sense.
1. New York paid most of the tariffs (taxes) into Washington DC.
2. The South produced 80% of all export value, and import values must roughly balance, therefore the South was producing most of the money that ended up in New York.
What I couldn't understand was why the money was ending up in New York when it was produced in the South."
Regardless of how often you post it, that's still a total misrepresentation of the facts.
Deep South cotton represented roughly $200 million 5% of a $4.4 billion US economy.
Yes, cotton was the single largest US export, accounting for about half of the $400 million 1860 total, including specie (California gold, Nevada silver).
But the US economy could & did get along without cotton during the Civil War, indeed doubled to nearly $10 billion by 1865.
As for why "the money" ended up in New York, well, for one thing, that's where it started!.
New Yorkers loaned the money which paid for Southern land and purchased slaves to produce cotton which then moved on NewYork-financed railroads to Southern harbors for transport on New York ships to Europe, etc.
On their return those ships brought imports to warehouses in New York where tariffs were paid before sale all across the country.
Of course you might well suppose that some elite Southern commercial interests could want a bigger piece of that action, but the fact is that not one of them even mentioned it in 1861 (for example, here).
That's what makes it pure fantasy on DiogenesLamp's part.