Posted on 11/21/2006 5:23:06 AM PST by SJackson
Yeah right.
There was very little rebellion. Why else would peace commissioners go to Washington? If Lincoln had accepted the status quo, there would have been NO WAR. That is a fact.
Sure. And you expect a rational government to allow a warship to invade their major port? NOT.......
Yes, that is true, but given what he had to work with, he was remarkably efficient for his day.
The status quo was federal troops manning their fort. That was the status quo that Davis couldn't accept and what he was willing to start a war to upset.
Not when they had such nice plans in place to bombard the fort into submission, if they didn't starve them into surrender first. The troops in Sumter had taken not a single aggressive, or even remotely hostile action against the South. The South had taken several aggressive steps against the fort. The onus for the war lies with them.
He had a simple job, all things considered. He took the U.S. postal system in place, jacked up the rates, and watched as his territory shrank. It's not like he started from scratch. Anyone could have done it.
I think that Lincoln's expenditure of effort on behalf of the 13th Amendment showed how much he cared. But regardless of Lincoln's attitude many southerners, with good reason in my opinion, saw the CSA as government of the slaveowners, by the slaveowners, for the slaveowners in which the servitude of the poor white slaves only differed in degree from that suffered by the black slaves.
No one should have to accept a Foreign Power occupying a fort in their main harbor.
Wrong. If Lincoln had not attempted to re-supply, The South would not have attacked Ft. Sumter. Anderson would have been forced out in a matter of a few days. Lincoln had all the cards, and he played them.
It wasn't that simple.
My Cattleman Ancestor didn't seem to have a problem with it.
He owned no slaves at all.
Texas had slaves, but only in limited areas, mainly East Texas, and the Brazos River Basin Areas. I have said it before, but in Texas, the popular support for secession, regardless of what the Ordinance said, was the idea that right or wrong, Texas would determine the future of slavery, or any other matter, for itself. Texas saw interference from the North and resented it.
Those 60,000 men who served from my state, had other concerns than slavery.
Great find. Thanks for the heads-up.
Why not? Cuba does.
Charleston wasn't their 'main harbor'. It was the third or fourth busiest port. The fort had done nothing to interfere with traffic into or out of the harbor. In fact, the only interruption to shipping was caused by the rebel batteries.
Bombarded into surrender or starved into surrender, either way the south was bound and determined to have the fort, consequences be damned. How is that 'maintaining the status quo'?
Har!! Funny.....good one.
Gitmo sits astride the entrance to Guantanamo City harbor, one of the major ports for Cuba. To date Castro hasn't seen the need to bombard the marines there into surrender, though some seem to think he would be within his rights to do so.
If it were about the status quo, the Confederates would not have shut down the food supplies for Anderson and his men.
It is not because he "accepts" it, "hasn't seen the need", or because he's a reasonable guy. Those marines would clean his clock.
If only Jefferson Davis had been as smart as Fidel Castro.
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