While I don’t have as extreme a view as Mr. Paul, I do think Lincoln mishandled the entire situation and his own actions contributed to the events leading up to the war.
Think of it this way: what other major country had a deadly civil war when they abolished slavery? The vast majority of countries found political ways to end slavery without massive bloodshed. This is something Lincoln failed to do. Sure, once the shooting started it was too late, but there seem to me to have been a lot of mistakes earlier that hardened everyone’s positions and lead to the conflict. Maybe it was inevitable, maybe not. We’ll never know for sure. But I don’t think analyzing this question should be beyond the range of discourse.
An interesting question, which nobody asks because it is basically radioactive in today’s environment, is: What if some compromise could have been reached that would have ended slavery without bloodshed, say, ten years later, around 1875. Some kind of phase-out period coupled with economic aid to the south to help them transition away from slave labor perhaps? Would that have been better than killing hundreds of thousands of people? Or would the moral thing to do still have been to immediately end slavery and doom hundreds of thousands of people to grisly deaths and many more to horrible injuries, followed by a hundred years of strife?
The federal government did not engage in massive aid programs involving cash then. They didn't have the money for it. Remember that the income tax was still in the distant future.
I added the "involving cash" because they did provide lots of largess to fund the railroads but that was done by giving away land.
Hostilities began 4 months before Lincoln was sworn in.
Are you speaking of his actions as a one-term member member of the House from 1846-48?
It would certainly have been better, but it wasn't going to happen. The intransigence of the South over the issue of slavery outweighed every other consideration at the time. It wasn't even a question of outlawing slavery, but of simply whether it would be allowed to expand. And the excesses of the Southern states, even against their own citizenry, were such as to indicate that they were not about to give it up without a struggle.
There was hope of a compromise being reached until the Feds called for Virginia to raise three regiments to invade the seceded states. Before this, though his own words and those of his advisers helped lead to the firing on Fort Sumter, there was hope that Virginia and others would not secede. The original group of states would have been isolated by seceding over slavery. I think they would have eventually have been mollified.
Once they pushed Virginia over the edge and out of the fold, the bloody Civil War was truly on.
Had armed citizens in SC not attacked Federal property who knows what might have been worked out, ie exchanging Federal property for cash or renouncing claims on western territories or maybe some conitued relationship. But once Fort Sumpter was attacked, then it was war.
Lincoln had little to do with the initiation of the war. Slavers were so determined to keep slavery that they started long BEFORE Lincoln was even elected to effect secession. Buchanan’s cabinet was filled with men who transferred arms to Southern depots and dispersed troops to keep them from easy use against the South.
A Federal fort was attacked. A fort that was CLEARLY US property.
The South was better prepared for war than the Union was and had been long working just for that end.
Lincoln had little to do with the initiation of the war. Slavers were so determined to keep slavery that they started long BEFORE Lincoln was even elected to effect secession. Buchanan’s cabinet was filled with men who transferred arms to Southern depots and dispersed troops to keep them from easy use against the South.
A Federal fort was attacked. A fort that was CLEARLY US property.
The South was better prepared for war than the Union was and had been long working just for that end.
Slavery was not as concentrated area-wise in other countries
and did not have pre-existing political institutions (separate semi-sovereign states) to aid a rebellion so it was easier to change without war. Nor was there as much economic power in the hands of domestic slavers. In other European countries the majority of slaves were outside the countries. Lincoln had nothing to do with the situation he inherited or his enemies’ reactions.
With all due respect, the issues in 1860 had absolutely nothing to do with ending slavery then or at any foreseeable time in the future. Only the abolitionists called for that then, and they were a small minority. If you had told people then that slavery would be outlawed in the next 5 years, they would have thought you were crazy. The only issue in 1860 was weather Congress had the power to stop the expansion of slavery to the territories. The South chose secession after the 1860 election because they saw that Congress would do just that and that Lincoln as president would enforce the ban on expansion and that the new states would be free states.
The Emancipation Proclamation and later the 13th Amendment that ended slavery in the United States were a direct result of the war, not the cause of the war.
If, for instance, the Union forces had gained a quick victory and crushed the rebellion in a matter of months, slavery where it existed would have gone on just as it had before the war. It was only after the war dragged on and losses mounted far beyond anyones expectations, that people made the connection between slavery and the divisions between the states lead to the war. From that perspective, a majority decided that slavery was indeed an evil that needed to be ended.
What other country had a segment willing to launch a deadly civil war to protect slavery?
An interesting question, which nobody asks because it is basically radioactive in today’s environment, is: What if some compromise could have been reached that would have ended slavery without bloodshed, say, ten years later, around 1875
The problem with that is that you would have to have the support of those owning the slaves. They would have to be willing to see slavery end on those terms. That did not exist in the U.S. in 1860. They were not willing to see slavery end on any terms.