The more I study it, the more it looks like a pissing contest which got out of control. The South had successfully seceded. Had they not fired on the Fort, they likely would have been left alone. Let a few years pass without any conflict, and the situation would have solidified.
They fired on Ft. Sumter out of pride and arrogance. They couldn't stand what they regarded as the humiliation of having US troops on what they regarded as their soil. Firing first gave Lincoln a justification for doing what he wanted to do anyway.
Both sides thought it would be a quick little conflict, and quickly forgotten. They each underestimated the arrogance and stubbornness of the other. Once enough blood had been shed, they could no longer let go.
I’m no fan of this current administration but I love my country. As far as ‘’Federal Leviathan’ that would seem to me to be the Democrats(Dems again) under Roosevelt and his New Deal’’ government socialism and LBJ with his ‘’Great Society ‘’ which created the modern day welfare plantation.
This is true, but the roots of what LBJ did go through what Roosevelt did, and before him what Wilson did, and before him what Roosevelt (teddy) did, and before him, what Lincoln did. Lincoln established the Precedent of using the Federal government as a tool to solve social problems. What LBJ did was a natural extension of that same policy.
Of course Jefferson used the government to solve social problems, as did Jackson, Polk, Pierce.
And that darned Washington, set a bad precident putting down the Whiskey Rebellion with General Lee at the head of his forces. Federal Supremacy writ large!
No, it wasn’t Lincoln that innovated federal power, it was the Slavocrats who innovated a completely unconstitutional doctrine of nullification, and then, after Jackson put that down like an old dog, invented ‘at pleasure secession’ as the Slave Power’s replacement. Also throw in Taney’s ‘no negro has any rights’ innovation, disregarding the long history of negro sufferage.
No, it wasn’t Lincoln that forced the war. It takes a powerful lot of moonshine to turn his “We are not enemies, but friends...” inaugural address to a cause for war, as pretended by the Slave Power.