My third of three comments (this one not short):
Lincoln is condemned both for making war on the South and for not immediately ending slavery. This is not fair. You should make up your mind:
Was Lincoln wrong, perhaps even evil, when he was a candidate for supporting the Republican position to forbid slavery (only) in the territories and not forbidding it where it was established? And, then, initially as President, sought to keep Virginia and other states of the mid-South in the Union? And, then, for a time, even when fighting got underway, for leaving the door open a bit, for a time, for the possibility of a negotiated settlement?
Or, was he wrong, perhaps even evil, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and, thus, for transforming the war into a war to free the slaves?
Here’s my position:
The Whigs and then the Republicans were wrong, in the sense of incorrect, but not evil, for not indicating that they would favor compensated emancipation. Their nuanced position on the issue put slaveowners at risk of loss. And, “win-loss” often results in violent conflict. We should always seek at least “win-no loss,” and even try for “win-win” when we can.
But, to criticize my own position, the problem with emancipation wasn’t the freeing of the slaves, it was what to do with them subsequently.
Emancipating a large number of uneducated and propertyless people, who would assume the various rights of citizenship, is not a good idea. It is predictable that they would vote to redistribute the wealth and would tend to do things like run enormous deficits.
Although some defenders of slavery eventually would make a genetic argument to justify the South’s “peculiar institution,” my reading of history tells me most of the Founders and most people through the early history of the Republic were concerned with granting citizenship, including the vote, to so many people who had not “assimilated” into the culture of a free society. Thus, by the mid 19th Century, Whigs and later Republicans were concerned about immigrants from the poor and backward Catholic countries of Europe, as well as what to do upon any freeing of the slaves.
The best retort I have for my own self-criticism is twofold:
First, in the North, the private charity system sought to assimilate immigrants into our free society, by demanding work and encouraging thrift. Accordingly, in Boston, where the private charity system got underway, there developed something like a conveyor belt of new immigrants arriving and then being transformed into people capable of acting as citizens of a free society.
Second, maintaining or even restoring a property qualification for voting could have been sufficient to keep attempts to re-distribute the wealth in check. The property qualification insured that voters would consider both the cost as well as the benefit of government spending. Unfortunately, for various reasons, universal male suffrage had become the rage (universal white male suffrage in the South), so that democracy combined with masses of ignorant and propertyless people equaled real problems.
The above summarizes well the consequences of "comprehensive immigration reform."
I condemn Lincoln for waging a no-holds-barred war against the South. As far as releasing the slaves that was not his intent at the outset.
Secretary Seward was the first who strongly recommended that the negro slaves be shipped back to Africa. Lincoln, at that time, concurred, but later suggested that buying the slaves from their owners and then shipping them to Africa.
I am in practically complete agreement with your position on the slavery issue.