We Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech: “It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense.” Lincoln said the soldiers sacrificed their lives “to the cause of self-determination — that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.” Mencken says: “It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves.”
Your assertion is this statement is factually incorrect?
Sure makes sense to me.
As to your first assertion. I only recall one example of consideration for succession. Also you say “1864 states were already....” they were 1 year away from losing a horrible unconstitutional suppression defense. See the paragraph below:
After initial problems, Davis’s government grew stronger as he learned to use executive power to consolidate control of the armed forces and manpower distribution. But some Southern governors resisted Davis’s centralization and tried to keep their men and resources at home. Although Davis used authority effectively, the insistence on preserving states’ rights plagued him constantly. Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, an early dissident, for example, sulked in his native Georgia and finally urged its secession from the Confederacy.
Your assertion is this statement is factually incorrect
As the author cherry-picked Mencken's words, so did Mencken, shall we say embellish Lincoln's words. You know what Lincoln said in that Address. Did he say "the Union soldiers sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination"? No. Those are the words of Menken, but butchered by the author. For comparison, here is what Menken actually said (compare it to the authors words):
"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history…the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, notlogic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."
The author forgot/neglected to mention that he was quoting Menkens interpretation of Lincoln's words "put into the cold words of everyday."