[LS]

Good. We agree on slavery.

I don't know of any rebellious state in history where the rebels were treated any more kindly than by Lincoln. Name me another rebellion where the leaders were not only eventually restored to full citizenship but did not have their property completely confiscated---and not just their so-called "slave property."

Based on history, for Lincoln to have been "just" to the rebels, he would have shot or imprisoned all the leaders, confiscated all plantation and/or Confederate property and distributed it to the freedmen, and prohibited anyone ever associated with the Confederacy from voting again. (see: Carthage, for example).

[Aurelius]

I am happy to be able to continue the discussion on more friendly terms. But, in my opinion, and I emphasize that this is opinion, the seceding states believed that they had every right to secede, inasmuch as the spirit of liberty that supposedly underlay the foundation of the country would have been contradicted had they not enjoyed that right. They did not view their action as a "rebellion". The only way that Lincoln could have acted justly, in my view, would have been to permit them to secede peacefully in the first place. Carthage was a nation founded on an entirely different concept and can hardly be taken as a basis of comparison.