If your standard of morality for invading foreign countries and seizing their territory is that they're better off that way, I guess you have a point.
Is that the church of Lincoln’s current position? ‘They made him do it!’ Poor Abe, he had no choice in the matter.
Ah, I must have missed where Lincoln personally sent the orders to the confederate batteries to fire on Ft. Sumter, timing it so that congress was out of town.
Putin makes pretty much the same argument when he explains away his responsibility for sending troops into Ukraine.
Funny, I was just thinking of Putin. I'll bet he believes Crimea is "better off" with Russia.
And good try with the Pearl Harbor/ 9-11 rationale. Ft Sumter was located in Confederate territory, quite the opposite of the Pearl Harbor and Twin Towers situation.
Just announcing that you're now a different country doesn't make it so. But just to be consistent, you think that if Cuba started shelling Guantanamo, we should refrain from reacting, because it isn't US territory, right?
Lincoln of course was looking for an excuse to launch his war and he gladly seized on Sumter.
So you're saying that a president should just ignore when a fort is shelled into surrendering.
But with Congress safely out of session Lincoln called up 75,000 troops, blockaded ports, declared martial law, and suspended habeus corpus all on his own.
And when congress came back they approved of everything that he had done.
“If your standard of morality for invading foreign countries and seizing their territory is that they’re better off that way, I guess you have a point.”
I see. Then you are in agreement with the Aztlan activists who want the American Southwest returned to Mexico. They share your view of the immorality of the United States. Lincoln may be the last American President they approve of. Maybe Obama.
“Ah, I must have missed where Lincoln personally sent the orders to the confederate batteries to fire on Ft. Sumter, timing it so that congress was out of town.”
Confederate batteries had fired on the supply ship Star of the West in January. Lincoln took office in March and could have used the previous Star of the West incident to ask Congress for a war vote. Congress adjourned and Abe sent a second supply ship. I give Abe credit for knowing it would be treated the same, giving him his pretext while Congress was gone.
“Funny, I was just thinking of Putin. I’ll bet he believes Crimea is “better off” with Russia.”
He certainly agrees with Lincoln that secession is unacceptable and needs to be put down by force.
“Just announcing that you’re now a different country doesn’t make it so. “
King George III agrees. Brezhnev too. And Putin.
“And when congress came back they approved of everything that he had done.”
11 states were missing from that Congress but there’s little surprise that the ones that remained rubber stamped what Lincoln wanted. They would have been slow learners if they missed the message when Abe had the Maryland legislature arrested.
I don’t know of another President who suspended habeus corpus, arrested political opposition, shut down newspapers. Maybe Woodrow Wilson during WWI. It is a good method for discouraging any opposition.