Who else but Lincoln?

[samgrant]

A lot has been said about how Lincoln managed to balance the military and political resources of the Union in order to achieve that ultimate goal of restoring the Union while also eliminating the institution of slavery.

What if:

Lincoln was not nominated for 1860? What if it was Seward? What if it was Chase?

 

[blue_zouave]

Samgrant, let me finish Team of Rivals and maybe I can answer that better!

Zou

 

[unionblue]

blue_zouave,

The book is an excellent read and you will enjoy it. Definately clears up a lot about the Lincoln cabinet and how they got along with the President.

If not Lincoln? Hmmmm....

Seward would have led the nation off on overseas adventures and the South would have had time to become the country they hoped to be.

Chase would have picked political cornies to head the armies and the South would still become the country they hoped to be.

Only Lincoln had the will to forge ahead and keep the Republican Party from fragmenting into hostile, rival factions, and they would have lost the 1864 election and the Peace Democrats would have made the South the country they had hoped to be.

Just an opinion.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[whitworth]

It's hard to think either Seward or Chase, would have duplicated Lincoln's efforts and leadership.
I think the delegates to the National Convention in 1860 knew Lincoln was better fixed on the problems of the day.

'Team of Rivals' clearly shows that Lincoln had better timing on issues and could survive the setbacks.

He was a westerner who knew the importance of industry and railroads. Lincoln more than others saw slavery, not only as a moral evil, but as a economic evil.

The abolitionists saw slavery in moral terms. It was slavery in its economic terms, that lost the war for the Confederacy. Lincoln grasped this fact, much greater than others.

The Confederacy spent all its efforts on why they fought the war; too little on how do we fight and sustain a war when it starts.

 

[Ozark Iron John]

I've read Team of Rivals. Good Book. Not my normal read. Not my normal slant on things. I've gained a healthy dose of respect for the Rail Splitter as a result and I regret some of the things I've said about him in the past. He weren't all that bad.

I wouldn't have voted for Seward or Chase except for maybe to get 'em a long drop on a short rope.

Beinz how I'm from Missouri, and knowin' what I know about Edward Bates, I suppose I would've been a Bates Man in 1860. He weren't no advocate of slavery, but he weren't for immediate abolition neither. I think he would've been able to guide the country through the issue without fracturing it into pieces and causing a Civil War. It might've been that the black man was held in bondage for another generation or two, but I don't think Bates would've let slavery expand into the western territories and it would've died of its own accord just as it did everywhere else in the New World.

 

[OpnDownfall]

Who Else but Lincooln?

With the Democratic Party split, a Republican victory was (almost) a given. If not Lincoln, it most probably would have been Seward,(although it is possible his victory may have been only by a plurality).
A foreign war to help unite the country would be such an obvious political ploy (and was well known to Washington insiders) to help keep the south in the union, that it is doubtful that it would have persuaded Seward's own party, much less the southern leaders or the British gov't (whatever, their publics may have thought).
Seward did not want to fight at Sumpter 'Because' it Was doomed to fall no matter what the inadequate forces available at that time, were employed. He wanted the Union stand to be made at Ft. Pickens at Pensacola, easily reinforced and supplied from the sea; thus entering the war with a signal victory at its very outset.
Seward was a professional politician (with all the faults and virtues that phrase conjures up), who worked within the system (like Lincoln). He was Union all the way, and although not so rock solid in the higher plains of Political Thought and Morality, he would have been stubborn in giving up the war for the Union. The advantages of the north, available to Lincoln was there for any other President and they were so overwhelming that even a President of modest ability would probably have been successful as Lincoln, (in a longer run, probably).
It is likely, that Seward (politican, that he was) and the radicals (opportunists, that they wer) could (or would) have come to an accomodation, which would likely have ended up freeing the slaves And IF Seward was not assasinated in Lincoln's stead, could have softened or eliminated the southern reactionary movement after reconstruction.
It May have taken a little longer and been a little harder fought, but the North under Seward would probably have prevailed, in any event.