This is it! I was terribly excited about this prospect and must express my genuine gratitude to Mason and Matty, Zeno and Plaaynde and every history buff who lobbied for: The History Forum. We're gonna have a blast!


I grew up just blocks from a cival war battlefield, and my early days were noticably lengthened by ongoing debate about The War. Some opinions had merit. Others were just arguments made up to bolster earlier arguments. Which do you think are which?

FACT or FICTION:

The south was dependent on slave labor for economic stability.

Slaves in general, preferred to stay with their masters, thus avoiding the uncertainty associated with financial and actual upheaval, and the inevetible difficulties of learning a new way of life.

The civil war wasn't caused by the south's anti-abolitionist stance, but by their subsequent withdrawal (succession) from the United States. The Union fought to preserve the union.

The Confederacy, could've won their battle to succeed if they'd focused on legal arguments and corresponding effects of withdrawel, instead of their right to own slaves.

Lincoln didn't care about abolition, but found it politically expedient to champion the cause.

Robert E. Lee, was asked by Lincoln to lead the Union Army, but refused, citing his loyalty to Virginia.

The south was hugely outnumbered and outgunned, and looking at near certain defeat, untill they almost pulled it off.

Stonewall Jackson was the greatest military strategist in recent history, and had he survived, would've led the south to certain victory.


Some of these issues are arguable. Which side would you take and why? Are there deducable moral issues involved? What are the priorities of resolution?
And what happenned to the south as a result? Did they deserve it?


Union or Confederacy: Who should've won?

Fact or Fiction!

This is fact. He waited until 1863 to create the Emancipation proclamation when support for the Union cause was faltering.the He was persuaded to hold off on the Proclamation until the Union had a victory. His stated solution to freed slaves was for them to start a colony in a different country.

The war was inevitable, but succession from the Union and the bombardment of Fort Sumpter started the actual conflict.

Fact. R.E. Lee was asked to lead the Union armies.

South never could have pulled it off without Foreign support, which was a lost cause after the Emancipation Proclamation. And even with Stonewall Jackson the numbers game of men and material would have outweighed the Southern advantage of generalship and elan. Grant proved that.

They didn't attempt to secede for no reason. False dichotomy.

How about this one:

Fact or Fiction

John Wilkes Booth shooting Lincoln would be like Tom Cruise shooting the president today.

True. In that both were both actors. More! (please)

JW Booth was a washed up actor. His brother was well known and beloved in the theater realm, and JW made money simply because of his name. However, he found no real success in the Theater.

I've always thought that the real reason for the war was over representation in congress which is proportional to each state's population. With the south heavily outpopulating the north and the 3/5th's rule being the reason, the north championed the abolition of slavery, correct?

This is what i remember from my history courses at least. Lincoln has always been painted as such a fighter of freedom, when in reality he did not care either way about the fate of african americans

It wasn't so much representation in the House as it was the Senate. Slave/free states were equal, which meant that neither the South nor North had a signficant political edge as they both had equal number of senators. As the U.S. expanded, the debate about new states and whether or not they would be slave or free was a constant problem that had to be resolved. The North constantly fought against adding slave states, while the South fought for more slave states and against more free states. It plagued the nation from the very beginning.

Ah ha. Got ya. However, house representation did still play a smaller role, correct?

Lincoln is quoted as saying, "If I could save the Union by freeing none of the slaves, I would; by freeing some of the slaves, I would; by freeing all of the slaves, I would."
He was against slavery, but I do not think he envisioned a country where black and white could amicably co-exist. And he knew if he championed the issue it would force the Europeans to not support the confederacy.

^I believe this is it exactly. The civil War was the inevitable result of the nation's growing pangs. By the 1850's the slavery really became a powder keg due to the vast open lands to the west that were finally acquired. The political battes over "free or slave" would have paralyzed th country anyways. It was through hard work by some of the great leaders of the time, and alot of luck that Civil war didn't break out sooner.

You may be thinking of the role slavery played during the Constitutional Convention with regards to the three fifths clause.

Spent a couple of years fairly interested in the Civil War and read up a fair amount (particularly on military side). Not an expert, but...

Fiction. Paying wages and charging for room and board would have worked.

Fiction. "In general" I think they would have preferred something between being slaves and being thrown out on the street at the age of 40 with no way to support themselves.

Pretty much true, although at some point the free states were going to get enough votes to outlaw slavery, and that was what was motivating everything else.

Unlikely.

Was certainly a political move but I think he did care. However, he would not have pushed for abolition if the war had not started or if it had ended quickly.

Fact.

Fiction. The north had the advantage in material and resources and the longer the war lasted the more this mattered, but the south was able to put armies on the field of battle that matched up fairly well and had the "advantage" of home turf for much of the war. Also, the south was fighting to defend, not to conquer, and they definitely could have won had the union not eventually found some competent commanders or had Lincoln lost in 1864.

Certainly had great successes. Don't know what would have happened. If he had been there at day 2 at Gettysburg or come up with a better idea than charging across an open field on day 3, who knows...

Union. Moral issues on both sides, but obv. south had the hardest position to defend. Reconstruction was a mess that made many things worse than they needed to be. Would have been better for all concerned if Lincoln had survived.

You sound quite knowledgeable to me.

No. Agricultural is labor intensive, or was before mechanical help. In order to maintain the lifestyle of the privilged, the rents would've been unmeetable. Think of coal minning towns circa 1930's. Although I'll concede, even that would've been preferable to the alternative.

Agreed, but that wasn't an option. Southerners are raised to treat the above statement as fact. Whether it actually was, is another subject altogether.

The upcoming entry of new states increased the rivalry. see above post.

The theory goes: Focusing on the legal act of succession would've bought time to solidify the military.


Lincoln was completely unconcerned with slaves.


Yes. Robert E. Lee was offered command of the union army. Refused it because he was a Virginian, despite being sympathetic to abolition.

Yes. Attrition would've got em, had the war continued. Confederate soldiers weren't fighting to keep slaves. They were fighting to defend their homes. Early advantage Rebels, but insustainable under the circumstances.


Stonewall? Wouldn't have needed to. He'd have just stood there and watched the union withdraw. There stands Jackson like a stone wall...

Yes. Reconstruction was a nightmare for southerners. Lincoln was committed to maintaining the union, and healing the wounds.

Lincoln did care about slavery, but he was also a politician who had to appease various constituencies. When he proclaimed the EP it led to many desertions in the Union army and draft riots. He didn't side directly with the staunch abolitionists because he disliked their self-righteousness and if he had embraced their "extremism" (for the time) earlier his political career would have suffered. Lincoln often presented the north-south conflict in terms of keeping the union together and understated the importance of slavery, but it's clear that he was very much against the institution.

"If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong."
"Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself!"

He was making anti-slavery statements way before the emancipation proclamation:

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it is in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise -- repeal all compromises -- repeal the declaration of independence -- repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.
--October 16, 1854 Speech at Peoria

Now I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil...
--October 7, 1858 Debate at Galesburg, Illinois

New approach from what I learned in grade school. We southerners are not taught to revere Lincoln. But these quotes are magnificent. Sounds like he may have lived up to his press. What do you think of the post above, saying he wanted to send the slaves to another country?

Which post is this? From what I know, this idea was bounced around by whites and blacks but never seriously considered on a mass scale. It would be a logistics nightmare; are there statements by Lincoln that support this view?

I am legitimately curious: what sort of things were you taught about Lincoln, being a Southerner? As a college instructor, I meet a lot of colleagues who primarily teach American History and jokingly call their class "Iconoclasm 101" and claim that they spend most their time "undoing the damage" of poorly-taught high school history.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lincoln_colonization

Actually, it was a little more complicated. While it is true that the abolition of slavery turned out to be not such a big problem for the plantation owners 'thanks' to the system of share-cropping, people did not know that in 1860/61.
The South felt that the North pushed the slavery issue because they wanted the South to go busto. Then the North could have bought the land in the South for peanuts.

Page 1 ITT. I think. If not, check out other civil war threads. I'll look too. Includes other quotes from Lincoln that are not so complementary. I'd like to know the answer if one exists.

See the link in post 20. It's a link to a story about a new book that deals specifically with the issue of Lincoln and colonization of former enslaved people. Lincoln was well known to have played around with the idea of colonization. Liberia was founded by ex-enslaved people. Lincoln did in the end realize that colonization was impractical, but he definitely played around with the idea.

Well, he was a politician so don't expect any answer to be simple and clear!

I can't point you in the precise direction, but you can always spend some time browsing the man's letters and speeches. Plenty of them exist:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/sear...nloads&query=3

In his 2nd Inaugural Address, he says that the war may be a punishment from god for slavery:

The whole address can be read in 5 minutes:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraha...ugural_Address

I'm not 100% but I want to say he did help slaves in some fashion in Illinois before he ran for president. I believe it was an article in the Illinois historical journal that I'm getting this from.

I argue that his pre-presidational retoric, that might make us think he didn't care one way or the other about the slaves, was to get support for his campaign. We all know what happened once he was elected. To further derial the thread the war was started as soon as he was elected, at least the seperation of the union.

Sorry to derail the thread just wanted to add my thoughts on Lincoln.

See Carl Sandburg from Illinois.