@ForeverFree,
I've seen you post this same view before, and I have to say it is just about the most level headed unbiased description of the issues that led to the Civil War that has been presented on these forumns, and I believe it addresses quite accurately the motivations for war for the South, and asks the right questions about the North in terms of Unionism (which I find very interesting.) It presents slavery as the central issue as it should, but recognizes that war wasn't inevitable just because slavery existed.
The only sentence that I would question, as I've said before in these forums, is the one I've quoted above, in that it presents Lincoln's stated desire to restrict only the territorial expansion of slavery as a quite reasonable position that the South should have accepted. A lot may depend on whether one interprets "restrict" to mean "allow in some small way" but I don't think the South saw it that way.
I'd be very interested to hear your take on whether Lincoln's stance is really a reasonable one given the circumstances - considering all of the political conflicts surrounding earlier compromises with allowing free/slave states to enter the Union, and the expressed desire of the South to expand slavery to new Territories/States. Did Lincoln seriously think that his "reasonable" stance would not cause a firestorm down South or was he aware of what the reaction would be?
The controversy over the expansion of slavery exploded back in 1820 (see the Missouri Compromise), and after that we had the post-Mexican War Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, and the
Dred Scott Decision. Lincoln was aware of these controversies.
My speculation is that Lincoln believed his party's positions were reasonable, while being cognizant that they were controversial. My feeling is that Lincoln and the Republicans saw his election as an electoral validation
of their free soil party positions.
And I would note that the same party platform stated
That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
In the minds of Republicans - or of some Republicans at least - their positions of supporting domestic slavery while prohibiting it in the territories were reasonable, albeit controversial; were within their "rights" to pursue; and were
right to pursue as a prerogative of their election success. Of course, this was their subjective viewpoint.
On the subject of Republicans "being cognizant that their views were controversial": note this portion of the 1860 Republican platform:
...we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may. And we congratulate the country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendency as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.
This indicates to me that Republicans were aware that disunionist sentiment existed, and they "called it out," to use a modern term. They were not naive about how the slaveholding states might view, and even demonize, a Republican president. It seems to me that Republicans miscalculated the risk of disunion. But even if they did, what could they have done?... not pursue the policies that they offered in their platform, and so fail to meet their campaign promises? I don't know if they saw that as an option.
EDIT: The Republican's denunciation of disunion, I think, was a message that the party was not keen at all on dissolving the Union. Is this a threat that secessionists did not take seriously enough?
In the end, it might be that both sides took positions that they each deemed reasonable, but were irreconcilable, thus leading to an irresistible conflict.
- Alan
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