Lincoln - what if he had really negotiated with the South ?

[LVZ]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by ellisonz (a host of the 2016 Postmortem forum).

600,000 Americans dead and 1 million amputations with no medication - I'm no fan of Lincoln's, sorry.

I agree ... and this is only the obvious physical cost of Lincoln's war of choice - not the economic and psychological.

Just 20 years ago, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and both have been better off.



For decades we have supported and encouraged secession movements throughout the world:

Germany-Austria | Norway-Sweden | Russia-{Finland}-Ukraine-Latvia-Uzbekistan etc. | Yugoslavia-Croatia-Bosnia-etc.
Pakistan-Bangladesh | China-Taiwan | Vietnam | East Timor - West Timor ... and more



Yet many fail to see how hypocritical and undemocratic it is to deny US citizens our right to peaceful separation.

Predicting History is Tricky - perhaps we only extended the misery of Southern blacks

How many would have predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, dissolution of the USSR starting in 1990, the end of virtual black slavery known as "Apartheid" in South Africa in the early 1990s?

Here is a possible alternate scenario:

Lincoln negotiates with Robert E. Lee to allow partial secession of the South while maintaining loose confederation with the rest of the United States. The USA is allowed by agreement to gradually purchase the freedom and relocation of slaves on the condition that no trade barriers are introduced by the USA and minimum price supports are introduced for Southern agricultural products. Minimum Southern slave "rights and conditions" must be adopted by Southern states.

The Northern states, unencumbered by war debts and proud of its "fight for freedom" status, encourages early black integration and prospers far more than the already backwards Southern states. There is a "brain drain" of more progressive Southerners and those seeking Northern prosperity. This northward flight encourages moderation in Southern politics and more rights for "slaves". That cycle accelerates as the economic gulf between North and South continues.

Later, many Northerners no longer want to continue agricultural price supports to the "slave owning" South. They want to dissolve the confederation between the USA and the breakaway South. There are further negotiations between North and South with the end result that the South agrees to gradually end slavery to maintain its "most favored trading" status.

[bemildred]

1. Speculation is such fun, eh?

Three popcorns plus butter, I'd say.

[Polldancer2012]

30. Warrior chickenhawks advocating attacking

Brown skinned people far away = BAD

Celebrating the organized slaughter of nearly a million Americans = GOOD

Yeh cool guys. The USCW should be filed away in the cabinet of shameful human violence history right next to the Holocaust, the invasion of Russia and Stalin's Holodomar.

I'm asking for consistency from a group of readers I know to be anti-war...

But you know what Stalin (possibly misattributed but still appropriate) said..." A single death is a tragedy but a million is a statistic"

[geek tragedy]

34. And exclusive blame belongs to those who started the war to continue slavery.

Of course, folks such as yourself would have negotiated Europe's Jews away to form a 'rational' peace with Nazi Germany.

[Polldancer2012]

43. I understand.

And an honest question for you. The USCW cost approx 600k lives, mostly Union boys. Thats 2% of the US population at the time.

My question for you, how many American deaths would have been OK with you?

Would you feel more ashamed of the USCW if the fatalities were 2 million? How about 10 million?

Would the USCW still be worth it if it cost the life of EVERY 16-55 year old American male?

Where do you draw the line on acceptable death?

[geek tragedy]

47. It would have been worth the death of every white Southerner.

Most of the deaths fell on the South, which is perfectly appropriate, given that they went to war to defend slavery.

[Polldancer2012]

50. Actually you're incorrect

Approx 60% of American boys killed in the USCW were from Union states.

So let's get back to my previous question...

As a great man once said, "Proceed" mr geek tragedy...

[geek tragedy]

55. It would have been worth millions more. Slavery had to die, no matter how many had to die alongside

it.

[Polldancer2012]

57. wow.

"no matter how many had to die alongside it."

I'm sorry... but that's disgusting. You would be perfectly OK with EVERY 16-55 y.o. male living in a Union state to DIE?

checkmate

[DemocratSinceBirth]

52. I Wouldn't Have Lost Any Sleep If Every Japanese Soldier Defending Bataan Was Killed/nt

[Polldancer2012]

59. How many American boys

would you have sacrificed instead of skipping that island and going to the next?

[bemildred]

53. I'm not anti-war, sometimes war is necessary.

But I suppose there is a lot of other stuff you "know" that is not so, too, your post is like a list of 'straw men", so I'll just say "carry on".

[coalition_unwilling]

64. Please read and give me your thoughts:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

[patricia92243]

2. Negotiate? How? Just a little slavery allowed. etc :(

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. It's Easy When You Aren't A Slave And Your Children Aren't Being Sold Like Dogs From A Litter/nt

[mysuzuki2]

3. What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. The Germans And Japanese Were Suing For Peace In 1945

Maybe we should have let the Germans keep the Sudetenland and their concentration camps on sovereign territory and maybe we should have let the Japanese keep most of occupied Asia.

There comes a time when evil has to be put down; like a mad dog.

[ROBROX]

6. SCARY BECAUSE IT READS SO TRUE

I have been in the south and they are stuck in the past. The next generation is not stuck in the past it is some of US boomer generation which stuck in the past.

It is still scary how many states still have a majority that voted RED. There are urban BLUE areas in all that RED. Even California is basically RED and there are those that want a north and south California.

Strange but so true if history could have worked out differently.

[LVZ]

10. thank you - finally an unbiased consideration of what "might have happened"

I am disappointed to see so many Dems stuck in ideology and not more thoughtful evaluation

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Not everything is up for debate. There are universal norms.

-You don't own other human beings
-You don't separate law abiding folks from their communities and throw them in concentration camps because they pray to a different god or come from a different race or nationality
-You don't displace folks who have been living in one area for years to make room for your folks.

I'm sure there are some other things that aren't up for debate. Follow those universal norms and decent folks won't band together and hand your ass to you.

[LVZ]

18. irrelevant - Lincoln did not go to war over slavery, he "chose" to go war to "maintain" the Union

For decades we have supported and encouraged secession movements throughout the world:

Germany-Austria | Norway-Sweden | Russia-{Finland}-Ukraine-Latvia-Uzbekistan etc. | Yugoslavia-Croatia-Bosnia-etc.
Pakistan-Bangladesh | China-Taiwan | Vietnam | East Timor - West Timor ... and more

Yet many fail to see how hypocritical and undemocratic it is to deny US citizens our right to peaceful separation.

From another thread (and another DU member):

Lincoln once said that if it took keeping slavery in the south to save the Union, he'd do it. If it took freeing the slaves, he'd do it. If the status quo would keep the Union intact, he'd stick with the status quo.

Yes, he was morally opposed to it, but his concern was the Union, not slavery. Success at any cost.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. Most Of The Secessionist Movements

We supported most of the secessionist movements you cited because the people who wanted to secede were being subjugated by an oppressive central government. I sound like Governor Rick Perry but I digress...In this instance, the Civil War, the people who wanted to secede were doing the subjugating.

[geek tragedy]

22. Who fired on Fort Sumter again? Take your War of Northern Aggression nonsense to a Klan site

where your apologism for slavery and white supremacism would be more welcome.

[bemildred]

13. You sound very confused about the current state of politics in California:

Republican losses show Inland Empire's political shift:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-inland-empire-20121111,0,2026992.story

We (the Democratic Party) hold the governorship and super-majorities in both houses of the legislature.

[bemildred]

56. GOP might never again hold power in California

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-election-20121112,0,7786081.column

[CCJORDAN]

7. This flies in the face of what makes us American

There are principles worth fighting for and it is what makes us Americans. We fought the british for our freedom, maybe according to you we shouldn't have. The ownership of a human being is something I am glad we had the courage to fight over rather than allow its existence. It is what makes defines us as americans, that we fight for freedoms and equalities for all people!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. I Would Have Hoped I Had The Courage To Lose A Limb Or Even My Life So Others Could Live Free

And I had nothing to do with slavery. While rich southern white folks were owning slaves my forebearers were running from pogroms in Eastern Europe.

A great figure once said " No greater love than this. To lay down one's life for a friend."

[sharp_stick]

8. The South wasn't interested in

negotiation. They wanted to be able to expand their ability to own land and people into the new colonies of the west and there isn't a chance in hell that was going to fly with the Union.

[Paladin]

9. Neo-Confederate Blather. Take A Hike. (nt)

[NoPasaran]

12. We are not enemies, but friends.

Lincoln said in his first Inaugural Address, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

The South responded by firing on Fort Sumter. There's your negotiation.

[onehandle]

15. What if Great Britain had negotiated with the Germans? How would that work out?

Oh, wait... We know.

[csziggy]

16. Southerners were intractable about wanting to secede

I have not read a lot about the general political climate but in reading local histories that cover the period 1840-1860 the South had factions advocating for secession for decades before the Civil War began. I don't think Lincoln could have overcome those strong forces.

In reading a history of plantations in North Florida (The Red Hills of Florida, 1528-1865 by Clifton Paisley), it was striking to me how adamant many were about dividing the country as early as 1846 in response to the Wilmot Proviso to prohibit slavery in new territories. "In Florida a bipartisan committee in the Whig county of Madison complained about an 'infamous war' that was being conducted by 'northern Whigs and northern Democrats' against 'southern institutions'." (from The Red Hills of Florida) A resolution introduced in the General Assembly in 1849 declared that "under no circumstance will the people of this state be willing to recognize as binding any enactment of the Federal Government which has for the object the prohibition of slavery in any territory south of the line of the Missouri Compromise." (ibid)

Henry Clay, who was instrumental in the Missouri Compromise, also promoted the Compromise of 1850 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay#The_Compromise_of_1850) which delayed secessionist movements but did not stop them.

Even the Quakers were split by the slavery issue. Again, this is from reading family history rather than general histories. My husband's ancestor was a Quaker who attended a yearly meeting in Indiana in 1842. Because of his descriptions of the turmoil in a letter home, and his mention of Henry Clay, and because that particular letter was undated I did some research into that meeting:

It was slavery and abolition that caused great tension and a split amongst the Friends of the 1840’s and 50’s. Quakers were well-established in Indiana politics by the 1840’s. They were officeholders and state legislators, usually members of the Whig party and solidly anti-slavery. Indiana’s first anti-slavery newspaper, the "Protectionist", was published by a New England Quaker in a room over Levi Coffin’s store in Newport. Another journal published in Newport was the "Free Labor Advocate". This was the journal of the Free Labor Movement which advocated discontinuing the use of, or purchase of, any goods or foodstuffs made or raised with the use of slave labor. This cause was championed by Abolitionist leader Levi Coffin and Free Labor stores where opened by several Quakers in the Whitewater Valley. Abolitionist Friends wrote for both of the journals to the great dismay of more moderate Hoosier Quakers. They also founded, and joined, abolitionist societies. This, most moderate and conservative Friends felt, was against the Quaker notion of appropriate quiet and retiring demeanor. Membership in Abolition Societies brought far too much notoriety to such members and disrupted the notion of unity, so valued by Friends. In 1842 Levi Coffin and other influential Friends were disciplined by the Yearly Meeting for their outspoken, and very public behavior, relating to slavery. The next day the Meeting welcomed slave owner Henry Clay as an honored guest. Outraged, the Anti-slavery friends retired to Newport and formed the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends. Levi Coffin, Charles Osborn and Henry Weeks were among the leaders of the Indiana Anti-Slavery Friends. The orthodox Friends were much grieved by the split. But, by 1857, these Friends had become, for the most part, abolitionists themselves. That year the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends dissolved and most members rejoined the Indiana Yearly Meeting. (Rudolph: 203-205; See Hamm: Chapter9A. Quakers and African Americans)
http://www.connerprairie.org/Learn-And-Do/Indiana-History/America-1860-1900/Quakers-In-Indiana.aspx

(My husband is also related to Charles Osborn, mentioned in this account.)

By the time Abraham Lincoln started his campaign to be President the country was already divided philosophically. IMO nothing he could have tried would have prevented the Southern states from seceding.

If even the Northern pacifistic Quakers split over this issue nearly two decades before Fort Sumter, how could Lincoln or any politician have been able to negotiate a settlement once the lines were so distinctly drawn?

[LVZ]

21. part of negotiation is giving "rational" people part of what each wants

If even the Northern pacifistic Quakers split over this issue nearly two decades before Fort Sumter, how could Lincoln or any politician have been able to negotiate a settlement once the lines were so distinctly drawn?

Refer to the referenced alternate scenario. The South gets a lot more autonomy and does not suffer economically as much as it could have (or did, when the war started). The North get concessions to free/relocate slaves to its territory, forces better "conditions" upon slaves in the South, maintains loose confederation (saving face) with the breakway states -- AND AVOIDS A BITTER, COSTLY, AND IN MANY WAYS STILL-UNFINISHED WAR.

[geek tragedy]

23. Do you consider the blacks in the South at that time to be 'rational people', or 3/5, or not at all?

Neoconfederate scum.

[LVZ]

26. I do not consider you to be rationale - merely abusive - enough said. n/t

[geek tragedy]

31. Yes, your analysis of bargaining with the south that ignored what black people wanted

and that would have left them slaves is the height of rationality.

For a neoconfederate, slavery apologist.

[Paladin]

29. It's A "Still-Unfinished War"......

Because Confederate apologists like you do everything you can to keep it alive. Like I suggested up-thread: take a hike.

[hack89]

32. So better conditions makes slavery OK?

Black slaves not worth white lives?

[csziggy]

58. The North had ALREADY tried to compromise for DECADES

That was what the Wilmot Proviso, Missouri Compromise, and the Compromise of 1850.

But Southern politicians were not interested in compromise. They were like the Tea Party of today - give them an inch of what they want, they push for feet more.

Remember, the SOUTH fired the first shots. The NORTH did not start the Civil War. Slave owners were not at all interested in giving up their nearly free labor. And even after the war they maintained - and STILL maintain - a social system that did not give fair pay to low level workers. More than anything, THAT is what has kept the South poor. The South in general still does not accept unions and the improvements for workers that they bring. How would the same system accept improvements in the lives of slaves if our country had allowed that institution to remain?

Although my family has deep roots in the South, I blame the South for the Civil War and the continuing political, social, and economic problems of the South. Southerners need to GIVE UP their delusion that the Civil War was forced on them by the North. Southerners wanted that war, started that war, and refuse to admit that they LOST THAT WAR.

The Civil War is OVER and has been for 147 years. Give it up.

[struggle4progress]

17. ... we'll fill our vacant ranks with a million freemen more ... and though he may be poor

no man shall be a slave ...

[geek tragedy]

20. So we should have continued slavery into the 20th century? Lemme guess, poster is pasty white? nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. I Get The Argument That Slavery Would Have Eventually Fallen Of Its Own Weight

But it's not up to us to use other human beings as barter in the meanwhile and how much longer would that "meanwhile" have been?

I am sure Lincoln saw that. He just couldn't say it.

[geek tragedy]

28. Someone willing to compromise on owning other human beings can't pretend

to have moral principles.

Somethings need to be fought over.

[LVZ]

33. one presumes then that all Presidents before Lincoln were immoral ? n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

37. I'll Turn That Around

What is the moral justification for owning other people and allowing their children to be bought and sold like dogs and cats from a prize litter?

[geek tragedy]

41. Yes. This has been another episode of short answers to stupid questions. nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

35. Which Is Exactly What Lincoln Did Without Explicitly Saying So

Lincoln wanted to end slavery and preserve the Union, by necessity spoke out of both sides of his mouth, and in the end accomplished both.

Well played...

[geek tragedy]

38. Lincoln was explicitly anti-slavery, Unlike the OP. nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. Exactly But To Maintain Support For The War He Had To Be Seen As Anti-Slavery And Anti-Secession

And not to elevate one goal over the other. And by doing that he accomplished both...

The fatalities from the Civil War were tragic but that was the price America paid for its original sin.

[geek tragedy]

45. Note this thread started with a whine about the rights of southern slave owners.

The OP was concerned not about the right of black people to be free, but rather the rights of white people to both own black people while determining their own political fate.

The OP is a neoconfederate pig (check out his avatar), and he should have been banned long ago.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. I Kind Of Divined His Rebel Sympathies

Maybe he's caught in a time warp and he thinks this is Democratic Underground circa 1865...


If there is such a thing as a "good war" then WW ll and the Civil War qualify. I suspect folks on the winning side knew what they were fighting for. I will be charitable and say for folks on the other side, not so much...

[geek tragedy]

51. The problem is that the losers knew EXACTLY what they were fighting for.

Confederates at one time considered using slaves to fight against the Union. They decided not to, because if a black man could fight alongside a white one, that would disprove the entire rationale of their fight.

They fought and died to vindicate the supremacy of the white race. The Confederate Battle Flag is no different than the Nazi Swastika.

[Blue4Texas]

24. How can we negotiate slavery or to secede

[csziggy]

60. The US had tried to to that for decades

Every time US presidents or Congress came up with a compromise (see my other posts in this thread on the compromises), slave owning states pushed for more.

And even though by the 1860s the abolitionist movement in Europe and North America was very strong, the slave owners in the South refused to consider the idea that slavery as an institution was and should come to an end. They were not going to give up their nearly free labor.

Even today the same states that tried to cling to slavery still engage in wage slavery by their 'right to work' laws and discouragement of unions. IMO that is what has kept the South poor - not paying low level workers a living wage.

[Blue4Texas]

62. Exactly, can't see how we can negotiate wrongness

[jeff47]

25. Lincoln didn't choose war. The South did.

The South attacked Union troops. The South voted to secede. And this:

South agrees to gradually end slavery to maintain its "most favored trading" status.

Is utterly delusional. The South started a war to maintain slavery, thus cutting off all trade with the North. And even before the war, England was the South's primary trading partner, not the North. Yet you argue that these same people would abandon slavery for better trade relations with the North?

Here's a little thought exercise for you: Why is 600k dead in the civil war worse than the millions of blacks killed by slavery?

[The Magistrate]

36. Exactly, Sir: The South Refused To Accept The Election Results, And Went To War

A war of treason, fought explicitly in the name of racial supremacy.

[FDRLincoln]

39. What a load of hooey

This is, to put it as delicately and diplomatically as I can, a bunch of neo-Confederate bullshit.

THE SOUTH FIRED FIRST. Lincoln was more than willing to negotiate in 1861. He did everything he could to hold the Union together (which was his JOB as president) without violence.

But THE SOUTH FIRED FIRST. The Southern states were hell-bent on secession, and hell-bent on preserving and EXTENDING the slave-based economy and racist supremacy.

If you think there is ANY chance that the Southern leaders would have given up slavery voluntarily, you are completely delusional.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. Even When They Were Suing For Peace In 1865 They Still Wanted To Maintain Slavery/nt

[WI_DEM]

40. What if we hadn't fought Hitler?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

48. Another Famous Crypto Confederate, Pat Buchanan, Wrote A Book About It

Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World
by Patrick J. Buchanan

[rrneck]

46. Utter tripe.

There is never a good reason to compromise about basic human rights. Never.

Take this bullshit elsewhere.

[FDRLincoln]

54. If only...

God what a load of crap this neo-confederate garbage is.

Few wars are clearly good vs. evil. But the Civil War (like WW2) was one of them. The Union was not perfect, but the Confederacy was simply evil. It was the South that refused to negotiate or compromise, and it was the South that initiated the violence between the states, and it was the South that kept millions of people in permanent bondage.

This neo-confederate stuff should be profoundly offensive to any patriotic American citizen.

[coalition_unwilling]

61. Do you understand what the principle of representative self-government

meant to Lincoln and his fellow Northerners and Westerners?

In their minds, the Union itself was something quasi-sacred and worthy of preservation. That's without the question of slavery even entering the picture.

Bring that into the picture and you are willing to let the South secede with slavery intact???? Way to throw American citizens of African ancestry under the bus.

[hrmjustin]

63. Lincoln made the correct choice. Fighting evil is always necessary.

He had mixed views on slavery at first, but came to see the war as a fight about good and evil. Slavery is evil! You can play out all kinds of outcomes that would have stopped the war, but it would have prolonged the suffering of the slaves. I call it the war of southern stupidity.

[LVZ]

65. Rabid anti-intellectual DUers or Freepers - at the moment it looks eerily similar

Seriously folks, some of the name calling, false associations, and extreme talk is more appropriate on right-wing blogs.

FWIW, I have never lived in the South, I am very anti-redneck, anti-confederate, not religious, and I am admittedly even slightly anti-Southern (but I do like Austin.)

Like Thomas Jefferson, however, I do strongly support the right of citizens to secede for whatever reason if they feel like they are no longer being represented well by their government. Should citizens virtually enslaved by the government of the USSR or Yugoslavia have more right to secession than Americans? Don't be so "conservative", narrow-minded, and reactionary in your thinking.

I have no idea if the Civil War ultimately caused more black suffering than it stopped but I am willing to consider the possibility.

What I do know is that the Civil War was extremely costly in many ways and those costs continue to this day.

[ellisonz]

66. Order! Order in the Court! (Locking)

Host consensus at this point is that there is no direct relationship to the elections of 2012 in this post. You are welcome to appeal directly to the locking host or to try posting in another forum where this post may be on-topic.

The Statement of Purpose for the Politics 2012 forum:

A forum for general discussion of United States politics, campaigns, and elections, at all levels of government in 2012.

Thank you for your understanding.