We can agree! Finally
“I personally disgree with Lincoln on the legality of states leaving the union.”
Agreement number 2- On that topic/Why would you hold a “debate” if your opposite didn't think the States had the Right? Lincoln was going to fight regardless if roses got sent
“those calling him Hitler even more outrageously incorrect”
Both believed in a ALL powerful Central Government
“Lincoln did not give an order for the murder of captured enemy soldiers.”
Now the disagreement/ It was the Union that Burned homes and gave permission to Rape!Furthermore
General Adolph von Steinwehr KILLED CIVILIANS
Not to mention Sherman or others
President Jefferson Davis writing to General Robert E. Lee
We find ourselves driven by our enemies in their steady progress towards a practice which we abhor and which we are vainly struggling to avoid. Some of the military authorities of the United States seem to suppose that better success will attend a savage war in which no queer is to be given and no sex to be spared. For the present we renounce the right of retaliation on the innocent and shall continue to treat the private enlisted soldiers of General Pope's arny as prisoners of war, but if, after notice to the govenment in Washington, these savage practices are continued we shall be reluctantly forced to the last resort of accepting war on the terms chosen by our foes, until the outraged voice of the common humanity forces a respect for the recognized rules of war.
You are therefore instructed to communicate to the Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United States the contents of this letter — to the end that he may be notified of our intention not to consider any officers hereafter captured from General Pope's army as prisoners of war
General Lee also wrote to the United States government condemning Pope's practices and warning of the results they would lead to. While General Halleck refused to accept Lee's letter because of its insulting statements about the United States government, nevertheless Pope's orders were modified and von Steinwehr was reprimanded for the conduct of his troops.# Sandburg, Vol. 4, p. 176
“Lincoln was going to fight regardless if roses got sent”
Have you ever read Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address?
It is posted in full on this thread.
What you assert is contrary to what he said, in very plain and eloquent English.
Do you claim a supernatural power to have read Lincoln’s mind, and somehow know he didn’t mean what he said?
Southern paranoia led to first to seccession and then to a bloody civil war, recklessly started by the South. It seems that 160 years later that little has changed for some.
In my opinion the bloody war would have been averted, if the South had been led by a statesman of the caliber of Lincoln.