What Was Lincoln's Best Option to Deal With States in Rebellion? (Poll)

What Was Lincoln's Best Option to Deal With States in Rebellion?

  • allow secession

    Votes: 4 6.7%
  • try diplomacy, if fails allow secession

    Votes: 14 23.3%
  • try diplomacy, if fails armed conflict

    Votes: 19 31.7%
  • armed conflict

    Votes: 16 26.7%
  • other

    Votes: 7 11.7%
  • Don’t know.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    60
as I recall most people thought it would be a 90 day war those people like Sherman and Forrest who thought it was going to be a long conflict with thought crazy.

I think Lincoln thought it was going to be a short War. Had he known what was going to happen, he may have just let them go to save 100,000's of lives. The rift between the two sections, and more specifically the two parties, was far deeper than most people realized.
 
I think Lincoln thought it was going to be a short War. Had he known what was going to happen, he may have just let them go to save 100,000's of lives. The rift between the two sections, and more specifically the two parties, was far deeper than most people realized.
I don't think he thought the US Constitution would let him give the confederacy a pass!

Kevin Dally
 
This poll is shocking over 50% still choose to wage war ...
and we know what the war brought.

I did not read it that way. Instead, I tried to only use the facts at the time not what we know now.

By the time Lincoln took office, things were really bad. If he were able to have a quick War, then it would be the best option. It's a huge risk, but I can understand why he saw it that way. It didn't work out, but from his perspective at the time, it seems like the best option.

I would hope everyone here actually prefers diplomacy. I answered based on what knowledge and facts LIncoln had available at the time.
 
As a side effect. Yes, it was a good thing, but it wasn't done for moral reasons, but as a "a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion".

And again, it seems we must RACE by those who actually brought on the war, who seemingly cared nothing for the consequences of that war, in order to have their own way, both in controlling the nation and concerning slavery.
Just violence and bloody war, because they thought they could win. Their choice.


It was entirely fit to have a war, a war decided by those who felt a free election did not matter and that law didn't matter.

Lincoln certainly got what he wanted.

The nation got what it needed.

It broke up a minority obsessed with control, not just over slavery, but terrified with the idea that a majority could decide things for themselves.
 
It was not Lincoln's war. Louisiana had been admitted to statehood on the condition that free navigation of the Mississippi be preserved. War Democrats in the northern states were not willing to try to compete with Republicans without southern assistance. Northern eastern Republicans wanted at the southern allies of the Democrats.
Lincoln did not have to much to get the governors behind him once the Confederates blocked the Mississippi and created Confederate privateers.
 
Hey, it doesn't matter how many died. The United States won, right? That's all that matters.
The question asked was not "was putting down the rebellion worth its cost?". It was "What was Lincoln's best option to deal with states in rebellion?"
Presentism colors our perspective. Although some in 1860/61 thought there would be little bloodshed regardless of the outcome, others clearly recognized there would be a substantial cost. Few thought that the cost would be as high as it was in the end. That has been true of virtually every conflict since one prehistoric man fought another.
Lincoln was charged with defending the Union: he could not allow secession to succeed. The question he asked then and we discuss still was how best to prevent it.
 
All this Yankee bloviating reminds me of just why the south seceded.
You people REFUSE to listen to a just argument.

You can't seceded. End of story. Edited.

You make us sound like ungrateful children.

Let me leave you with a few choice words and I'm sure such intelligent folks as yourself can source them.
Combined they pretty much sum up how I fell about the whole thing

1. Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the South have created a army. It appears they are making a navy, and they have made what is more then both,they have made a Nation.

2. A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me

and lastly from a musical number ... They have called us rebels and traitors
But themselves have thrown off the name of late.
 
All this Yankee bloviating reminds me of just why the south seceded.
You people REFUSE to listen to a just argument.

You can't seceded. End of story. Now get back here you little b**t**ds !!!

You make us sound like ungrateful children.

Let me leave you with a few choice words and I'm sure such intelligent folks as yourself can source them.
Combined they pretty much sum up how I fell about the whole thing

1. Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the South have created a army. It appears they are making a navy, and they have made what is more then both,they have made a Nation.

2. A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me

and lastly from a musical number ... They have called us rebels and traitors
But themselves have thrown off the name of late.
The vast majority of the Southern people did not wish to secede from the Union. Certainly not the forty percent of the population that was enslaved and did not wish to continue. to be enslaved.
@Mortari has a thread that shows that only a small percentage of the Southern population even voted for Secession. I have a thread " was the vote for Secession free and fair?" In point of fact it was not. Much violence was visited on voter's who voted against Secession. So no the vast majority of Southern Americans did not favor Secession. Many conscripted Confederate soldiers deserted and or defected to the Union Army.
Leftyhunter
 
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The vast majority of the Southern people did not wish to secede from the Union. Certainly not the forty percent of the population that was enslaved and did not wish to continue. to be enslaved.
@Mortari has a thread that shows that only a small percentage of the Southern population even voted for Secession. I have a thread " was the vote for Secession free and fair?" In point of fact it was not much violence was visited on voter's who voted against Secession. So no the vast majority of Southern Americans did not favor Secession. Many conscripted Confederate soldiers deserted and or defected to the Union Army.
Leftyhunter
Are you saying since there were very few who actually favored secession, those Confederate soldiers who fought 4 bloody years must have been supermen?
 
Agreed, it's disturbing.
What's disturbing is those who insist that (after all the evidence says otherwise) the southern slave owning minority had the backing of the US Constitution, and the right to break up the country over slavery! And WORST than that, honor that sad devotion, to a bad cause!:sick:

Kevin Dally
 
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The nation got what it needed.

It broke up a minority obsessed with control, not just over slavery, but terrified with the idea that a majority could decide things for themselves.
The radical Republicans weren’t obsessed with control? Don’t forget they pressured Lincoln toward war, and after its conclusion pushed for retribution.
 
You make us sound like ungrateful children.

I was unaware that you and whoever else today is included in the group of "us" was alive back in the 1860s but yes, the Southern states that attempted to secede, formed the Confederacy and committed acts of war against the United States prior to launching thousands of artillery rounds at United States soldiers in a Federal installation, were at a minimum acting like "ungrateful children."

A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me

All I can say is that if you find no charm in living in what I and I'm sure others find as the best country in the world, then there is nothing preventing you from leaving for your Nirvana wherever that may be.
 
Are you saying since there were very few who actually favored secession, those Confederate soldiers who fought 4 bloody years must have been supermen?
No just that the vast majority of Southern did not favor Secession. Between blacks and Unionists maybe a little over half the Southern population favored Secession and less then that has the war progressed. After the ACW with out the issue of slavery there was no serious political movement for Southern political Independence.
Leftyhunter
 
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