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More bull.

Yes, I know it's more bull but I'm going to read your post anyway. I promise.

See my comments about the Missouri Wide-Awakes above.

Yes, I know. But I noticed you forgot to talk about the St. Louis Minute Men - the pro-secessionist group that was active at the time and who the Wide-Awakes were organizing to oppose. And I also noticed that you completely forgot the mention that a state convention convened in March voted down secession. Why is that? Why is it that you have no problems with Southern mobs taking the state out of the Union against the wishes of the people as expressed at a convention held to determine the whole secession question, but you see nothing but evil intent in an attempt to oppose that attempt?

Also, if you are correct (and you are not), then why were Ben Butler and the Sixth Mass formed up and moving within 48 hours of Lincoln's call for troops?

Well it would nice if you were specific on which 6th Mass. you were talking about. Assuming you mean the one that was attacked by the rebel mob in Baltimore, then it was ready to move for the same reason why Virginia militia regiments were ready to move against Harper's Ferry the day the state voted for secession - state's had been organizing militias for decades. The 6th Mass. was made up of militia companies that existed. It was an organization of long standing with a history going back to the Revolutionary War. The fact that it could be collected and deployed withing a few days is not surprising.

Troops from Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts were all on foot within hours of Lincoln's call.

Same explanation as the Massachusetts militia.

Threat from the South? I don't think so.

Why not? They had already fired on the flag and had made it clear that they would have Sumter regardless. All the aggressive acts had come from them. The threat from such an unstable regime was very real and something Lincoln had to keep in mind.

But I noticed you forgot to talk about the St. Louis Minute Men - the pro-secessionist group that was active at the time and who the Wide-Awakes were organizing to oppose.

The Wide-Awakes were a political marching group organized well before the 1860 election. Who's zooming whom here? They were radical, militant, sinister paramilitary political street formations exactly analogous to the Nazi Sturmabteilungen, the Brown Shirts. The Wide-Awakes dressed in uniforms and wore black oilskins when they marched in their lamplight parades.

Don't play "equivalency" games with me. The Republicans dreamed these guys up on their own. There was no equivalent on the other side when the Wide-Awakes were organized.

And I also noticed that you completely forgot the mention that a state convention convened in March voted down secession. Why is that?

Because we were talking about something else -- the fact that Lincoln started planning before he armed the Wide-Awakes in January, to suppress the entire State of Missouri.

Missouri isn't the only Southern State -- it was a Southern State, pal, get over it! Full of rednecks! And you can't stand it, but there it is! -- to have voted down secession, only to change their minds later when they saw what Lincoln was doing.

Only they never got the chance -- Lincoln had his tigers at their throats before they could move.

Why is it that you have no problems with Southern mobs taking the state out of the Union against the wishes of the people as expressed at a convention held to determine the whole secession question, but you see nothing but evil intent in an attempt to oppose that attempt?

Nice try. The whole State was a "Southern mob" according to you ..... except for the Missouri Wide-Awakes who were innocent little lambikins rowing back and forth to the Illinois side to arm up with the contents of Illinois arsenals.

Your "attempt to oppose that attempt" was the original attempt -- don't try to turn this around. Your guy Lincoln jumped first. He started the whole damned thing, including the Missouri coup d'etat.

The Missouri volunteer Militia, the MMV, were legitimate. The Wide-Awakes were not. That's the difference. The MMV were the People of Missouri in arms, and your guy sent a jackleg army to "arrest" them and subjugate them -- precisely the thing that Hamilton and Madison promised us wouldn't happen under the federal system they'd devised with the Constitution.

Lincoln used force against States the way I use flyswatters on flies, and he did it unprovoked. Lincoln was the aggressor, you can't get out of it.

All the aggressive acts had come from them.

Not true, as I have just posted to you. And lying to people and sending troops after dissembling same, is not "aggressive" in your book, I'm sure.

The threat from such an unstable regime was very real and something Lincoln had to keep in mind.

Oh, so the way to deal eirenically with an "unstable" regime (that didn't exist, in Lincoln's theory) is to poke it with a stick. Good peace policy. Not.

Lincoln was going for a war all the way.