Nonsense. The war came because The Lincoln wouldn't have it any other way. He intentionally acted in a manner that both instigated violence and exacerbated it. To the former effect, he sent a fleet of warships to Sumter with the clear intent of instigating a conflict. To the latter, he raised armies of invasion to expand that conflict when it erupted into full fledged war and further dispositioned several non-seceded states toward war by way of those armies and the blockade.
Keeping slavery out of the national territories would have been a good foothold on a peaceful solution
No, not really. As a "solution" it offers nothing to address the desire for political separation from the north.
Maybe President Lincoln was right when he said that if every drop of blodd drawn by the lash must be matched by one drawn with the sword, then no one could say that the judgments of the Lord were not true and righteous.
Or maybe his saying so was an arrogantly presumptuous attempt to rationalize away the sins of his own side by blasphemously characterizing them as divinely acceptable retribution against the sins of another. Sorry Walt, but The Lincoln was not a god and for him to claim legitimacy in his crusade of sin by calling it something other than sin is a blasphemous perversion of the truth and the Christian religion.
"The Richmond Examiner stated their choice in unflinching language
Quote a fringe opinion all you like, Walt. That won't change the fact that even your own source said that opinion was not representative of those beyond the fringe. In the meantime I'll happily point out Robert E. Lee's opinion. He said "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages."
And also for the record, you'll have a hard time convincing much of anyone, Walt - even your own - that opinions from the Fitzhugh fringe were more representative of the south than those of Lee, a mainstream southern figure if there ever was one.
Nonsense. The war came because The Lincoln wouldn't have it any other way.
What about "his" amendment?
Lincoln bent over backwards to avoid war. What he wouldn't allow was the south to have their way in every jot and tittle. It was the south that determined on war.
Walt