Lincoln What If Lincoln Had Worked With Virginia & North Carolina Prior To Calling On The State Militias To

Joined
Mar 11, 2012
I think that he would have found fertile ground there for talks with pro unionists which could have resulted in both states staying in the union;and without those two states the Confederacy could not have waged a war of any magnitude.
 
I think that he would have found fertile ground there for talks with pro unionists which could have resulted in both states staying in the union;and without those two states the Confederacy could not have waged a war of any magnitude.
If I'm not mistaken, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas seceded because the Union decided to wage war against the first seven seceding states, so I don't know if it would have been possible to keep them in the Union and still fight the war.
 
Those States had already committed to seceding if the Union used force against the States already seceded.
 
I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever to support this thesis. The people within Virginia, Tennessee, N. Carolina, etc. were already in heated debates over secession, they might have eventually seceeded anyway. Lincoln did pretty much all he could just to keep Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri from seceeding.

Unfortunately, rational discussions weren't of much use in late 1960 and early 1861, nobody was listening to each other. Many southern newspapers refused to even print Lincoln's inaugeral address, instead printing their own editorial opinion of what a "vile speech" it was - the ordinary southerners had little opportunity to form their own opinion.
 
This is not correct as regards to Va.
Correct. Virginia was one of the few states that did have a referendum. A convention voted to secede and then the matter was put to all the people in a referendum. One of the notable things about the delay was that former governor Wise set about taking US property before the vote was in.
 
The war of the Southern Confederacy is, therefore, not a war of defence, but a war of conquest, a war of conquest for the spread and perpetuation of slavery.

Deprived of the border states and hemmed in by the Mississippi in the west and the Atlantic in the east, the South has conquered nothing — but a graveyard.

Karl Marx
 
I think that he would have found fertile ground there for talks with pro unionists which could have resulted in both states staying in the union;and without those two states the Confederacy could not have waged a war of any magnitude.

Most pro-Unionists were 'conditional' unionists. The federal government using force to 'co-erce' the already seceded states, would not have met any of the 'conditions' suitable to remain in the union.
 
What was the outcome?

On the first referendum, the vote was against secession, but authorised the governor to activate the militia (sorry, I don't have the numbers handy). The second referendum was held after Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion. Across the state the total was 104,913 for and forty-seven thousand two hundred thirty-eight against the proposal.
 
I think that he would have found fertile ground there for talks with pro unionists which could have resulted in both states staying in the union;and without those two states the Confederacy could not have waged a war of any magnitude.

Worked with them in what way?

16th VA posted a link to information about Lincoln meeting with Virginian politicians. Is this what you had in mind or something different?
 
The testimonies are very interesting reading. Thank you.

You're very welcome. Some people think that Baldwin and Lincoln misunderstood each other at that meeting. I wonder what would have happened if George Summers, whom Lincoln first invited, had gone instead of Baldwin.

This is an interesting short examination of the Baldwin-Lincoln meeting.

http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/FinalOrder/FApr4.1Comm.html
 
You're very welcome. Some people think that Baldwin and Lincoln misunderstood each other at that meeting. I wonder what would have happened if George Summers, whom Lincoln first invited, had gone instead of Baldwin.

This is an interesting short examination of the Baldwin-Lincoln meeting.

http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/FinalOrder/FApr4.1Comm.html

So it's possible the war was essentially the result of "a failure to communicate."

It's particularly interesting to me because I came to this forum to explore the question that has always been on my mind: was there some way the war could have been prevented? I also wondered why Lincoln had delayed sending relief supplies to Fort Sumter. This account offers some possible answers.
 
Back
Top