[rockrr]

I have always had difficulty accepting Lincoln’s decision that lead to the killing of 600,000 people

It's hard to take you seriously when you start off with such an enormous distortion of the truth....and another strawman.

Do YOU believe secession is the same as insurrection?

Generally speaking they are not synonymous. The way the southern slavers tried it was definitely seditious.

[jeffersondem]

“Generally speaking they (secession and insurrection) are not synonymous.”

When I wrote, “If secession was not legal . . . then the actions of the South should have been put down as an insurrection” you wrote “Congratulations, you’ve just seen a glimpse of reality.”

Seems you have your rump in two saddles. Do you have an explanation?

[x]

I've been listening to Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising on audiobook. It's about John Brown. For a popular, non-scholarly book it's quite well researched, but not as vivid or exciting as it could be.

I'd recommend reading David Potter's The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861, Allan Guelzo's The Crisis of the American Republic: A History of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, and David Donald's Lincoln and The Civil War and Reconstruction for background.

Daniel Farber's Lincoln's Constitution and Gabor Boritt's Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream might also be worth a look.