Lincoln Should Lincoln Have Let The South Secede Instead of Trying To Preserve The Union?

Should Lincoln Have Let The South Secede Instead of Trying To Preserve The Union?


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Timakramer

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The Civil War was a pivitol point in US history. In some ways, we are still working through the aftermath of the war and reconstruction. Was the decision to go to war the correct one? What would have happened if Lincoln had let the South secede?
 
It is hard to see anything good coming of ignoring one's Constitutional duties and letting states violate their obligations at will. Allowing secession any time an election or legislative or judicial decision went against a section is simply anarchy.

At any rate, the Deep South was still bent on expansion of slavery into United States territories--the point around which secession centered. War would seem inevitable, coexistence unlikely.
 
Before I answer that question, let me provide some information which another forum member gave in an earlier post:


****
Source: The Beginning And The End, by Dayton Pryor:
December 27, 1860. The first Federal property to fall into South Carolina hands is the U.S. revenue cutter William Aiken, turned over to secessionists by its commander, Capt. N. l. Coste, who did not resign his commission and herefore was in violation of his oath of office. The crew left the ship and went North.
Castle Pickney was seized by South Carolina militia and a problem arose: were the two Federal soldiers capture in the fort to be considered prisoners of war? If so, it would imply there was, in fact, a war. Following a lengthy discussion, the one Federal officer was allowed to go to Fort Sumter while a sergeant and his family were given safe conduct to remain in their quarters at the fort. What was significant was that the secessionists no held, for the first time, a U.S. fort. Union officer Abner Doubleday called it "...the first overt act of the Secessionists against the Sovereignty of the United States."
Fort Moultrie is taken by South Carolina militia.
December 28, 1860. A detachment of South Carolina militia enters and takes control of Fort Johnson. Three out of four Federal forts have been seized and are now under the control of South Carolina militia troops.
January 3, 1861. The War Department cancelled plans to ship guns from Pittsburgh to the forts in the South. Former Secretary of War Floyd, who resigned and went South, had been shipping weapons and large guns South for the past several months to help build up the Southern arsenals.
January 4, 1861. Even though it has not yet seceded from the Union, Alabama troops seize the U.S. arsenal at Mt. Vernon, Alabama.
January 5, 1861. Even though it STILL has not yet seceded fro the Union, Alabama seizes Fort Morgan and Gaines which protect the harbor at Mobile.
January 6, 1861. Even though it has not yet seceded from the Union, Florida troops seize the Federal arsenal at Apalachiocola.
January 7, 1861. Still not having yet separated from the Union, Florida troops seize Fort Marion at St. Augustine.
January 8, 1861. At Fort Barrancas, guarding the entrance to Pensacola Harbor, Federal troops fired on a raiding party of about twenty men, who then fled.
January 9, 1861. On this day, Senators Judah P. Benjamin and John Slidell of Louisiana telegraphed Gov. Moore of that state, which had not yet seceded from the Union, that Federal gunboats were secretly bringing supplies to the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Here are a pair of men who were secretly betraying a government to which they still swore their allegiance. Gov. Moore ordered Braxton Bragg and 500 troops to seize the forts and the United States arsenal at Baton Roughe.
The Star of the West attempted to resupply Fort Sumter, but was fired upon by a masked battery from Morris Island and then by guns from Fort Moultrie, in spite of the fact two U.S. flags were flown. The ship was repeatedly fired on, forcing it to turn and steam away.
January 10, 1861. Gen. Bragg and the militia seize the U.S. forts and arsenals in Louisana.
January 12, 1861. Capt. James Armstrong, commander of the Warrington Navy Yard at Pensacola, Florida, is captured and regarded as a prisoner of war, and ...placed on his parole of honor...not to bear arms against the State of Florida.
January 13, 1861. Several men are seen near Fort Pickens in the night and were fired upon. These unknown men retired from the area of the fort.
January 21, 1861. Mississippi troops seize Fort Massachusetts off the coast, in the Gulf. Ship Island is also taken.
January 24, 1861. Georgia troops occupy the U.S. arsenal at Augusta.
January 24, 1861. At Savannah, Georgia, Fort Jackson and the Oglethorpe Barracks are seized by state troops.
January 29, 1861. Louisiana state troops take possession of Fort Macomb, outside New Orleans. The revenue cutter Robert McClelland was surrendered to Louisiana state authorities by Capt. Breshwood, despite orders not to do so by the Secretary of the Treasury.
January 31, 1861. In New Orleans, the U.S. Branch Mint was seized by state troops along with the revenue schooner Washington.
February 8, 1861. Before it had seceded from the Union, Arkansas troops seize the Little Rock U.S. arsenal.
(February 11, 1861. Lincoln boards the train that will take him to Washington.)
February 12, 1861. Confederate officials in Montgomery took charge of matters related to occupation of Federal property within the seceded states and all other military matters. On that date they "Resolved in the Congress of the Confederate States of American, That this government takes under its charge the questions and difficulties now existing between the several states of this Confederacy and the government of the United States of America, relative to the occupation of forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and other public establishments..."
February 15, 1861. The Confederate Congress passes a second resolution "That it is the sense of this Congress that immediate steps should be taken to obtain possession of Forts Sumter and Pickens...either by negotiations or force, as early as practicable, and that the President is hereby authorized to make all necessary military preparations..."
February 16, 1861. Before it had seceded from the Union, Texas militia in San Antonio seize the U.S. military compound, barracks and arsenal.
February 19, 1861. In New Orleans, the U.S. Paymaster's office was seized by state troops.
March 2, 1861. Texas, now out of the Union, seized the U.S. revenue schooner Henry Dodge at Galveston.
(March 4, 1861. Lincoln is sworn in as the 16th President of the United States in Washington, D. C.)
March 6, 1861. The Confederate Congress authorizes an army of 100,000 volunteers for twelve months.
March 15, 1861. The State of Louisiana transferred over $536,000 in money taken from the U.S. Mint in New Orleans to the Confederate government.
March 18, 1861. In the Florida panhandle, Gen. Braxton Bragg refused to permit further supply of Fort Pickens.
March 20, 1861. Texas troops seize three more Federal forts. At Mobile, a Federal supply ship, the U.S. sloop Isabella, was seized before it could sail with supplies to Pensacola.
April 3, 1861. In the South, a battery placed on Morris Island in Charleston harbor fired at the Federal schooner Rhoda H. Shannon.
April 12, 1861. At 4:30AM, Fort Sumter was fired upon by Southern forces.
April 15, 1861. President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers.
*******

This secession looks a lot like a domestic insurrection. Federal property was seized by force of arms; a US Mint was raided. Several of the states that seceded were formed from territories that were the joint property of all of the states, and in the minds of some folks, the states did not have the unilateral right to remove those from the Union. (This was, at times, put in the context of economics: some in states in the old Northwest - the Northwest Territory states - considered the loss of access to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico to be unacceptable.)

In the eyes of the Union, the Confederacy was a military threat to the territorial integrity and economic prosperity of the United States. Confederate secession was not implemented after a convention or other gathering of the states, to negotiate the terms of dissolution; it was done by the barrell of a gun. Failure to respond would make the Union seem weak, cowardly, unmanly, and bowed; the Confederates threw the gauntlet, and the Union would not ignore it.

The bottom line is, the way that secession went down, it was very very very difficult to just let it be. I don't see how Lincoln could have rationalized to the voters, much less to himself, that an armed rebellion could be deemed acceptable.

- Alan
 
Allow the South to seccede? No. Why? BECAUSE he was a humane and moral man and was able to put himself in the shoes of a slave who had no future and in his gut he FELT that horror and had he done nothing that horror would have continued until God knows when. Yes he wanted the Union preseved intact.....but he also grasped the evil and sickness of slavery in a "felt" way. He is on the record ,,,,. many blab bout the Civil War but cant get down to the real nitty gritty. It was about human beings. At times I just get freaked out by those who seem to thing the deal was a kinda "political" blip in our history and cant seem to feel any real compassion for millions. Lotta "academics" are like this and that is why I detest many of em....and I am an academic...sorta...I teach, or try.

Lincoln felt and understood....that is one of the reasons he perservered. He had a moral anchor. Big time. He knew he was on the JUST side. The Gettysburg Address makes his position perfectly clear.........a new birth of freedom. Went over the heads of a lotta people in that day however. Subtle...but potent.
 
Any country who had previous grievances with the United States, I'm looking at you England, could have more easily played divide and conquer, because we were already divided. Next step, conquer one, then the other.
 
The Civil War was a pivitol point in US history.

I agree.

In some ways, we are still working through the aftermath of the war and reconstruction.

No, we are not, not even close.

Was the decision to go to war the correct one?

Lincoln and a majority of the country did at the time. Since they have already made that decision and we live with the results today, what reading can we give except opinion over an already recorded historical fact?

What would have happened if Lincoln had let the South secede?

He didn't, he couldn't, so it didn't happen.

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
Lincoln violated the very principles the original country founded on – the right of the people not government to decide self-determination.

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements."

Abraham Lincoln January 12 1848
 
Lincoln violated the very principles the original country founded on – the right of the people not government to decide self-determination.

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements."

Abraham Lincoln January 12 1848
Once again you use a quote that doesn't apply as he stated later that it doesn't apply in those cirucmstances..The people did decide on self-determination and they chose to be part of a Union and he couldn't allow the slave owning political party to tear it apart..
 
"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements."

Abraham Lincoln January 12 1848

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case
 
Any country who had previous grievances with the United States, I'm looking at you England, could have more easily played divide and conquer, because we were already divided. Next step, conquer one, then the other.
There were some in Washington, at least early in the war, that thought it might be the solution; England attacks the North, and the southern brothers abandon the rebellion and comes to their aid.
 
Lincoln violated the very principles the original country founded on – the right of the people not government to decide self-determination.

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements."

Abraham Lincoln January 12 1848

So when you don't like how an election turns out, you have the right to leave the Union?

R
 
Lincoln violated the very principles the original country founded on – the right of the people not government to decide self-determination.

Let's say a husband and wife can no longer live amicably with each other.

Exit scenario 1: Husband and wife get lawyers, come to agreement on some issues, and for others, they go to a judge/mediator who resolves the remaining issues. Kids, property, dogs are allocated per agreements. The agreements don't make everyone happy, but at least, it is done under circumstances that are legal, nonviolent, and fair.

Exit scenario 2: Husband goes ballistic. He beats his wife out of anger, takes the kids without having discussed things with his wife, raids the bank account, and goes across state lines to live with his (formerly secret) lover.

Confederate secession was Exit scenario 2.

I don't think anybody would begrudge a couple who have grown to dislike each other for wanting to dissolve their marriage. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do things.

- Alan
 
Allow the South to seccede? No. Why? BECAUSE he was a humane and moral man and was able to put himself in the shoes of a slave who had no future and in his gut he FELT that horror and had he done nothing that horror would have continued until God knows when. Yes he wanted the Union preseved intact.....but he also grasped the evil and sickness of slavery in a "felt" way. He is on the record ,,,,. many blab bout the Civil War but cant get down to the real nitty gritty. It was about human beings. At times I just get freaked out by those who seem to thing the deal was a kinda "political" blip in our history and cant seem to feel any real compassion for millions. Lotta "academics" are like this and that is why I detest many of em....and I am an academic...sorta...I teach, or try.

Lincoln felt and understood....that is one of the reasons he perservered. He had a moral anchor. Big time. He knew he was on the JUST side. The Gettysburg Address makes his position perfectly clear.........a new birth of freedom. Went over the heads of a lotta people in that day however. Subtle...but potent.


Just to be clear, though: when the United States first resisted secession, the goal was to preserve the Union, and not to disturb slavery. If the war handed ended early, it's possible that slavery would have remained, and been further protected through some compromise agreement. As Lincoln said in his second inauguration speech,
"(When the war started) One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war... Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding."​

Emancipation, of course, was the fundamental and outstanding result that Lincoln referred to.

- Alan
 
So when you don't like how an election turns out, you have the right to leave the Union?

That's a common red herring, but there's no indication in the history of the Union that people or states considered themselves entitled to secede on a whim. Rather they were guided by the principles laid out so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, that "Governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes". It was appreciated that secession or separation was a profound act, only to be resorted to when no other means appeared able to resolve irreconcilable differences.

Perhaps we should pose the question in the reverse - is the Declaration of Independence wrong? With the caveat noted above, it asserts the right of a people to separate from a government which they determine no longer represents their interests, whether or not that government consents or the existing constitutional law explicitly permits it. Is that wrong? Or is the United States such a "perfect Union" as to be exempt from what the Founders stated as a universal principle?
 
Allow the South to seccede? No. Why? BECAUSE he was a humane and moral man and was able to put himself in the shoes of a slave who had no future and in his gut he FELT that horror and had he done nothing that horror would have continued until God knows when. Yes he wanted the Union preseved intact.....but he also grasped the evil and sickness of slavery in a "felt" way. He is on the record ,,,,. many blab bout the Civil War but cant get down to the real nitty gritty. It was about human beings. At times I just get freaked out by those who seem to thing the deal was a kinda "political" blip in our history and cant seem to feel any real compassion for millions. Lotta "academics" are like this and that is why I detest many of em....and I am an academic...sorta...I teach, or try.

Lincoln felt and understood....that is one of the reasons he perservered. He had a moral anchor. Big time. He knew he was on the JUST side. The Gettysburg Address makes his position perfectly clear.........a new birth of freedom. Went over the heads of a lotta people in that day however. Subtle...but potent.
Total poppycock!
 
So when you don't like how an election turns out, you have the right to leave the Union?

That's a common red herring, but there's no indication in the history of the Union that people or states considered themselves entitled to secede on a whim.

I have seen it argued that States had the legal authority to secede any time they felt like.
It is the basis for many an internet argument.



Rather they were guided by the principles laid out so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, that "Governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes". It was appreciated that secession or separation was a profound act, only to be resorted to when no other means appeared able to resolve irreconcilable differences.


Perhaps we should pose the question in the reverse - is the Declaration of Independence wrong? With the caveat noted above, it asserts the right of a people to separate from a government which they determine no longer represents their interests, whether or not that government consents or the existing constitutional law explicitly permits it. Is that wrong? Or is the United States such a "perfect Union" as to be exempt from what the Founders stated as a universal principle?


The DoI was necessary because the of the lack of legal recourse or as you put it "no other means appeared able to resolve irreconcilable differences". The DoI lays out a set of principles, a set of grievances, and a resulting conclusion. The principles were logical and matched the thinking of the day; the grievances were real; and the conclusion was backed up by action. But this was still an act of rebellion and the signers of it knew they had to have "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" and appeal "to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions" and win recognition of their action. In 1860 South Carolina (and then followed by others) did something similar. Lacking the legal justification for its actions, it issued a declaration that was similar -- some principles, grievances and a conclusion followed up by action. The difference came in the "opinions of mankind" and the success of their actions.
 
I think Lincoln's call for men to suppress the rebellion was a terrible political decision. Without Virginia and North Carolina there wouldn't have been a war. There probably wouldn't have been a 4 year Confederacy and there certainly wouldn't have been upwards of a million American causalities.
 
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