Blaming Lincoln

[RetiredCPT]

I see a lot of blaming Lincoln for the war from the neo-confederate side. But would there have been any difference in the southern response to the election of the other three possible republican candidates? (Seward, Chase, or Bates)
Also do you believe that any of those three candidates policies towards the rebellion as president would have been significantly different then Lincolns?

 

[jgoodguy]

IMHO any Republican anti slavery candidate winning the presidency will provoke secession.

 

[brass napoleon]

Southern leaders were talking about insurrection and revolution if ANY "Black Republican" was elected, well before Lincoln even emerged on the scene:

'In view of such effects and consequences here from the mere possession of one branch of Congress we ought not to shut our eyes to the effects of the possession of the government in all of its departments by any Black Republican. It would abolitionize Maryland in a year, raise a powerful abolition party in Va., Kentucky, and Missouri in two years, and foster and rear up a free labour party in [the] whole South in four years. Thus the strife will be transferred from the North to our own friends. Then security and peace in our borders is gone forever. Therefore I deeply lament that any portion of our people shall hug to their bosoms the delusive idea that we should wait for some "overt act." I shall consider our ruin already accomplished when we submit to a party whose every principle, whose daily declarations and acts are an open proclamation of war against us, and the insidious effects of whose policy I see around me every day. For one I would raise an insurrection, if I could not carry a revolution, to save my countrymen, and endeavor to save them in spite of themselves.'

- Georgia Senator Robert Toombs, February 10, 1860

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=6acOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA462&lpg=PA462
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[hanna260]

Seward and Chase would have terrified Southern slave owners even more than Lincoln, due to them being perceived as die hard abolitionists. I would also guess Chase at least would have been harsher on the South, due to having more radical beliefs and being much more committed, at least initially to the anti slavery cause than Lincoln.

 

[jgoodguy]

Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860
By Lacy K. Ford
P366

 

[DanF]

The secessionist plotted to rebel and seize, forts, arsenals, mints, etc. Back in 1856 if Fremont had won instead of Buchanan.

Some of the Slave states passed resolutions declaring the election of ANY republican candidate to the presidency a declaration of war against the South and against slavery.

 

[RetiredCPT]

Thank you for your replies, you have posted many good sources on the slave powers thoughts on the Republican Party. I also agree with the opinions posted here than no matter who won the republican nomination the results would be the same.
I do think that Chase would have issued something like the emancipation proclamation much sooner than Lincoln did. I also think Seward might have fired McClellan sooner than Lincoln did. I still think in the end that the Union would have crushed the rebellion no matter who the president was.