Today show going to report on Abe Lincoln being gay.

[missyme]

Playing Jacks with Pochohauntus?

[Delbert]

QUEER EYE FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL GUY

[JLO]

I really like your idea. I wonder if they would feel like they were dragged though the mud, though. Maybe if would be more like a badge of courage for them, LOL.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

There were pockets of confederate sympathizers in East Tennessee but the region as a whole voted 32,923 to 14,780 to stay in the Union. That's why the rebel bushwhackers were the problem in East Tennessee, not because all the Unionist element were saints, but because the people as a whole wanted no part of disunion and the forces of the rebellion were acting against the wishes of the people.

[quadrant]

Lincoln wanted to prevent the extension of slavery, but before the Civil War began, Lincoln knew he had no legal authority to forcibly free the slaves in the South.
Please remember that the Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in the states that had seceded and not in those states that remained loyal to the Union.
It took a Constitutional Amendment to free all the slaves.

[XJarhead]

Uh, so? I'm not sure of the relevancy of your point. That's pretty undisputed.

The primary reason that the southern states voted for secession was because they saw Lincoln as anti-slavery. Though he knew he did not have the legal power as of 1861 to eliminate slavery altogether, many southernors believed that by barring slavery in the territories, the anti-slavery states would be joined by the new anti-slavery territories when they became states, thus giving the anti-slavery forces enough political power to legally ban slavery everywhere. Lincoln was a symbol of the increasing political power of anti-slavery forces.

Plus, the rising anti-slavery tide in the North and presumably in the new territories would provide a progressively more welcoming escape route for southern slaves, since many northern states were turning a blind eye to recapturing slaves.

The south saw the handwriting on the wall on slavery, and seceded.

[quadrant]

Secession was the rash and foolish act of political extremists who played right into Lincoln's hands.

Despite declining political power, the South still possessed enough strength the block any effort to emancipate the slaves via constitutional amendment.

If the South had not seceded, it might have been the Twentieth Century before slavery could have been abolished.

[rebelyell]

In his inaugural address, lincoln the war criminal stated that he had no intention of touching slavery.

[rebelyell]

Slavery would have withered on the vine within 15 years of the radical republicans forcing the South out of the union.

[quadrant]

How would the radical republicans "force the South out of the Union"?
If you answer yes, detail the steps and the legal justifications.
Would the states forced out include Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri, the slave states that did not secede?

[rebelyell]

No, lincoln the tyrant wouldn't let the legislatures of those states vote on their constitutional right of secession. You are aware that he actually arrested legislators and newspaper editors, aren't you?

[quadrant]

It isn't clear if a constitutional right of secession exists. If it does exists, the right should have been exercised through the courts or the political process
and not by violence.
If the right was found not to exist, then the states should have remained in the Union and made Lincoln's political life
miserable, which would have been easy to do since he was elected without a majority of the popular vote.
Though I'm a Southerner, I have a sympathy for Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. He was in a weak political position and faced a rebellion, conditions that make political niceties irrelevant.

There is a book about Lincoln you may wish to read.
FORCED INTO GLORY, Abraham Lincoln White Dream
by Lerone Bennett, Jr
The book contains material about Lincoln that I found fascinating.