and you know that Lincoln was a tyrant, usurped the Constitution and Sherman was a war criminal. Buchanan stood by and did nothing when the first states seceded, because he knew the federal government had no legal right to retain them by force. If South Carolina’s secession meant anything, they could not allow the federal presence sitting in their harbor to remain. Maj. Anderson should have simply struck the colors and departed along with his men. Lincoln wanted war and he got it. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was nothing but a publicity stunt to provoke a slave rebellion in the South, thereby drawing resources away from the battlefield, where the Union had been getting it ass kicked for two years. To the victor, goes the history. Please continue to deify the man, who gave you what we have now, an overbearing and bloated federal government.
Actually Buchanan sent a message to congress in Dec of 1860 stating that he believed Secession was illegal, but also that the federal government had no right to force states to remain in the Union. Once again showing what a spineless bastard he was and cementing him as the worse president in our nations history.
No more so than any other US wartime president, and less than some.
For example, Republican Lincoln never set up civilian internment camps of the types that Democrats Wilson and Roosevelt did in WWI & WWII.
As for property confiscations, remember hundreds of thousands of Loyalists to Britain (about 15% of population) during the American Revolution were subject to confiscations, prison & other punishments and about 70,000 fled the USA after the war.
So Lincoln's actions were not unusual.
TallahasseeConservative: "Sherman was a war criminal."
Rubbish, certainly no more so than Confederate leaders like Jubal Early (Chambersburg PA), William Quantrill (Lawrence KS) or Henry Heth (Shelton Laurel, NC).
Indeed every Confederate leader in Union regions practiced confiscations or destruction of "enemy contraband", including any freed-blacks they could kidnap for resale in the Confederacy.
But Sherman's specific orders in Georgia & beyond were for humane treatment of any civilian who did not oppose them.
TallahasseeConservative: "Buchanan stood by and did nothing when the first states seceded, because he knew the federal government had no legal right to retain them by force."
Right, and this is the Big Lie which all pro-Confederates practice: you claim the war was caused by secession, it wasn't, it was caused by Fort Sumter and the aftermath.
TallahasseeConservative: "If South Carolina’s secession meant anything, they could not allow the federal presence sitting in their harbor to remain."
But our Founders did allow dozens of British forts and trading posts to remain on US territory after the Revolutionary War in western New York, Ohio and Michigan.
Some remained, manned, resupplied and reinforced at will by the Brits for over 12 years.
And yet our Founders never made those forts a casus belli, instead sent their best negotiator (John Jay) to patiently work out British withdrawals, in 1796.
Point is: in such cases, those who wish peace can achieve it peacefully.
TallahasseeConservative: "Maj. Anderson should have simply struck the colors and departed along with his men."
Then Confederates would simply have started war elsewhere, Fort Pickens near Pensacola, FL, for example.
TallahasseeConservative: "Lincoln wanted war and he got it."
Nonsense, what Lincoln really wanted was to hold the Union Fort Sumter until exchanged for something valuable, such as Virginia remaining in the Union.
Civil War was Jefferson Davis' choice, about which he was warned by his Secretary of State Toombs:
Toombs was right, but Davis paid him no heed.
TallahasseeConservative: "Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was nothing but a publicity stunt to provoke a slave rebellion in the South, thereby drawing resources away from the battlefield, where the Union had been getting it ass kicked for two years."
Well... one year, after Union victory at Antietam/Sharpsburg in 1862.
As for "publicity stunt", hardly, since it eventually freed millions of slaves and helped enlist nearly 200,000 freedmen in the Union army, enough to make up for every Union soldier killed by Confederates!
So the Emancipation Proclamation was a big deal, a dagger into the heart of the Confederacy and one from which it never recovered.
TallahasseeConservative: "To the victor, goes the history. "
And the losers get your mythology & fantasies about what did happen and what shoulda, woulda, coulda happened, if only, if only...
TallahasseeConservative: "Please continue to deify the man, who gave you what we have now, an overbearing and bloated federal government."
Nobody here "deifies" Lincoln.
All we work to do is keep y'all from spreading too many d*mn lies about him.
As for our "bloated Federal government" those are nearly 100% the fault of you Democrats, including you Southern Democrats.
Lincoln had nothing to do with what you people did under your Progressive Southern Democrat President Wilson and your New Deal Democrat Roosevelt, and God help us, your Great Society's Pedernalis Cowpoke LBJ.
Look at it this way: in 1858, before the Civil war Doughfaced Democrat President Buchanan's US Federal government spent 2.5% of US GDP for national defense, lighthouses, etc.
In 1870, after the Civil War, under Republican President Grant, aside from national debt repayments, Federal government spent 2.5% of US GDP.
The increase from 2.5% then to today's 25%+ did not really begin until FDR's New Deal in the 1930s first raised peacetime spending to 15% of GDP.
Lincoln is not to blame for what you Democrats did.
Look in the mirror, point your finger: there's the one.