Mike Griffith
Sergeant
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2014
Two more points:
* Another scholarly source on the Northern conservative position and on the Radicals' sabotage of compromise efforts is
George Milton's research, especially chapters 31 and 32 of his book On the Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934, pp. 518-551). Milton, by the way, wrote approvingly of Lincoln in most cases (e.g., his book Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth Column).
* A strong indication that the Crittenden Compromise would have received solid support in the North and in the Border States is the 1864 presidential election. When I began to study the Civil War, I assumed that Lincoln had won re-election by a massive landslide, that he had gotten at least 65% of the popular vote, given the fact that the vast majority of Southern citizens did not vote in the election and that by October 1864 it appeared very likely that the Union would eventually win the war. In fact, I was surprised that anyone had even run against Lincoln in that election.
I was stunned to discover that George McClellan not only got 45% of the popular vote but that he came within 1.1% of winning New York and within 3.3% of winning Pennsylvania, the two most populated states in the Union, and that he did so in spite of numerous reported cases of voter fraud, and in spite of the unethical measures that Stanton and the War Department took to discourage Democratic soldiers from voting (see, for example, https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/how-lincoln-won-the-soldier-vote/?_r=0).
McClellan had a Peace Democrat as his running mate (George Pendleton) and the Democratic Party’s platform called for a ceasefire. Even though McClellan repudiated that plank of the platform, everyone knew that McClellan disapproved of the scorched-earth tactics that Sherman and Sheridan were using and that with McClellan there would be a genuine chance of ending the war on generous terms that would allow the Southern states back into the Union with all their previous rights as states intact.
If 45% of voters in the Union states voted for McClellan in 1864, even when an eventual Union victory appeared very probable, it should come as no surprise that there is so much evidence that the Crittenden Compromise would have won by a solid majority of all Americans if the Republicans had allowed the people to vote on it.
* Another scholarly source on the Northern conservative position and on the Radicals' sabotage of compromise efforts is
George Milton's research, especially chapters 31 and 32 of his book On the Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934, pp. 518-551). Milton, by the way, wrote approvingly of Lincoln in most cases (e.g., his book Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth Column).
* A strong indication that the Crittenden Compromise would have received solid support in the North and in the Border States is the 1864 presidential election. When I began to study the Civil War, I assumed that Lincoln had won re-election by a massive landslide, that he had gotten at least 65% of the popular vote, given the fact that the vast majority of Southern citizens did not vote in the election and that by October 1864 it appeared very likely that the Union would eventually win the war. In fact, I was surprised that anyone had even run against Lincoln in that election.
I was stunned to discover that George McClellan not only got 45% of the popular vote but that he came within 1.1% of winning New York and within 3.3% of winning Pennsylvania, the two most populated states in the Union, and that he did so in spite of numerous reported cases of voter fraud, and in spite of the unethical measures that Stanton and the War Department took to discourage Democratic soldiers from voting (see, for example, https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/how-lincoln-won-the-soldier-vote/?_r=0).
McClellan had a Peace Democrat as his running mate (George Pendleton) and the Democratic Party’s platform called for a ceasefire. Even though McClellan repudiated that plank of the platform, everyone knew that McClellan disapproved of the scorched-earth tactics that Sherman and Sheridan were using and that with McClellan there would be a genuine chance of ending the war on generous terms that would allow the Southern states back into the Union with all their previous rights as states intact.
If 45% of voters in the Union states voted for McClellan in 1864, even when an eventual Union victory appeared very probable, it should come as no surprise that there is so much evidence that the Crittenden Compromise would have won by a solid majority of all Americans if the Republicans had allowed the people to vote on it.