“the States divided might have been ripe for the picking by a foreign power like Russia, France or Britain. We might now again be British colonists, but for Lincoln.”
You don’t hear that one all too often. Usually it’s more about how the North and South would’ve fought eachother over the West, though it’s never been explained to me why a fight sooner was better than later. Anyway, they were busy enough at the time. They prefered countries less able to fight back.
Remember Lincoln’s speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum, and remember we were still buffeted by the two oceans and cradled by the vastness of our continent. Us being one country instead of two was never alone the reason Europe stopped trying to conquer us after 1812 or so. Because they could’ve done it nonetheless, bygum. The major reason they didn’t in 1812, I should think, is due to us being but a sideshow in the war on Napoleon.
The North and South could take on comers seperately or together. Why couldn’t we have been allies, if not fellow countrymen, after the break? We had no trouble licking the Mother Country’s boots for two world wars, nor making them lick our boots afterwards. And that was after the humiliating for them War for Independence.
“...We might now again be British colonists, but for Lincoln.”
It could have been sooner! Back in the 1840s the US and Canada almost went to war over the Oregon territories.
Great Britain attempted to get a treaty uniting Britain, Mexico, Canada and the new nation of TEXAS against the US.
Texas was so horrified at the proposal they immediately joined the US as a state, and Mexico ended up taking the brunt of the war as GB and Canada settled with the US over Oregon.
What you learn from thirty years of haunting libraries with real BOOKS!