Neo Confederates and Revisionist Civil War History

[jrodefeld]

@Oldeb

But can we still ask why you hate America and want to see it torn apart?

You can ask, but its a ridiculous question. I don’t hate America, I love liberty. If the Federal Government follows the Constitution, doesn’t take us needlessly to war, doesn’t bail out criminal banks with our tax dollars, doesn’t invade our privacy and trample on the bill of rights, and in general seeks to protect liberty, then I support them. But if the Federal Government becomes authoritarian and abusive of the rights of the people, then I support a means by which the states can establish sovereignty and nullify unconstitutional laws to protect its citizens. Believe me, I DON’T want to see a divided country where secession becomes necessary or there is some kind of conflict again. But if the choice is between passively accepting tyranny and a police state and standing up for your rights by any means available, then I will side with liberty and the Constitution. This is how our government has changed over the past fifteen years or so:

1. We now fight wars of aggression that are undeclared against sovereign nations.
2. Corporations and banks have completely taken over our economy and government and have rigged the system in favor of the well connected rich at the expense of the poor and middle class.
3. We have lost our civil liberties to the Patriot Act. We have lost habeas corpus. We have moved closer to a police state with cops who taser grandmas and children.
4. We have a two party system which is controlled by the same interests. No matter who we vote for, we don’t like them by the time they are out of office. No policies ever really change. There is rampant voter fraud.
5. Our government spending and out of control monetary policy has jeopardized the future of our children and grandchildren. We have become slaves to debt by design so our bankers can become rich off of interest and trading credit default swaps and derivatives.
   I don’t know what your definition of “tyranny” is, but it looks like we are well on our way. You may subscribe to the definition of patriotism that George W Bush and Obama support, that is supporting your government at all cost.

I’ll stick with the definitions given by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. We NEED the tools of states rights to combat increasing attacks on our liberties now and in the near future.

[Oldeb]

So does this mean you will not be explaining how a buyout would have prevented the impementation of the Black Codes?

Or how Lincoln was going to convince Congress to increase taxes by several orders of magnitude without a war?

Or how he was supposed to bring to the negotiating table a group of states that seceded at his election,* before he was even sworn in?*

Or how Reconstruction was supposed to happen? Or if it wasn’t needed?

Or how if racism was mainly a product of the uncompensated loss of slavery/scapegoating for a defeat in war how Lincoln was such a racist when he never owned slaves?

[jrodefeld]

@Captain_Amazing

Like some other people had said, it wasn’t politically possible. Even if southerners had agreed to it, there’s no way that Congress would have agreed to spend the money. Even though you and I know that it would have been cheaper than the Civil War, people wouldn’t have known that in 1861, and Congress wouldn’t have agreed to raise 5 billion dollars, which was a whole lot of money back then. In fact, when Lincoln tried it in the border states, the plan was rejected utterly, both by slaveholders in the border states and Congress.

Also, remember, most of the southern states seceded even before Lincoln was sworn in. So by the time he became President, the seceded states weren’t in any mood to listen to anything he had to say.

Today, by the way, is Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia, which celebrates the one time that compensated emancipation actually worked. On this date in 1862, Lincoln signed a law freeing the slaves in the District of Columbia and paying their owners.

Thats very interesting. It shows that compensated emancipation does work (at least at some level). I still maintain that if given a choice between war and compensated emancipation, a majority of the country would have avoided war. Even if you are correct, what if it was done over a period of a couple years? Or maybe, like in the District of Columbia, it was shown to work for both sides on a smaller scale, more would have been open to the notion and it would have taken off. Before you know it most, if not all of the slaves would be freed. Even if it took ten years to free every slave, I think most would agree it would be better than the consequences of the war.

I really cannot accept the notion that cost would be the prohibitive reason against this policy, especially if the cost was spread over several years time.

[Captain_Amazing]

@jrodefeld

But, we do have the advantage of hindsight. Basically my whole argument boils down to the fact that if we would have pursued an orderly buyout of the slaves we would have avoided so much hardship and unintended consequences for so many people. Couple that with the fact that Lincoln had ulterior motives for war and committed endless unconstitutional acts in the waging of that war, and I think my argument is pretty strong.

It’s not a good argument, though, because we couldn’t have pursued an orderly buyout of the slaves. It’s a little bit like that Saturday Night Live skit where a bunch of historians have a debate on how the World War II would have been different if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly.

Also, I don’t believe that Lincoln had ulterior motives for war. Lincoln was quite clear about his motives for war, that he thought secession was unconstitutional and immoral, and that it was his Constitutional duty as President to stop it from happening. He made this perfectly clear to anyone who asked, and even to people who didn’t ask. If anything, he was fanatical about that motive to the point of tediousness. What other motives do you think he had?

I also don’t know that he committed “endless unconstitutional acts”. He suspended Habeus Corpus in Maryland near the beginning of the war in violation of judicial order (ex parte Merriman), engaged in some censorship, and instituted some constitutionally ambiguous military tribunals. But that’s pretty much it. What exactly did you have in mind?

[jrodefeld]

@Dissonance

You never did answer, so I truly am curious, are you really unaware of the illogic between these beliefs of yours? Pretend for a moment that a slave buyout and subsequent reconstruction of the South was a feasible possibility, Lincoln had been elected campaigning on a platform promoting this, the South didn’t secede over it, Lincoln wasn’t laughed out off the floor when he asked Congress to taxably raise more money to do this than as RickJay said existed in the country or had been spent by the Federal government in its entire history and that taxing this amount of money didn’t lead to a Civil War in another form anyway - would you be praising Lincoln? I rather think you’d be here ranting about him being one of the vilest and evil presidents for his fiscal insanity and deviousness in establishing a much more powerful central government in violation of the Founders wishes using abolition as a cover.

No, I’d be praising Lincoln and I would say it would be justified that he be considered one of our greatest presidents. Although I am a libertarian, sometimes our government needs to spend a lot of money on something, like a true justifiable war in which our national security is jeopardized, and a moral issue like ending slavery. I don’t see any contradiction in my beliefs. He wouldn’t be getting rid of the founders notion of a voluntary union or destroying states rights but spending the money necessary to avoid war at all cost. He would be a hero. Afterwards, we would cut down our spending again and regain a balanced budget. If EVER it would be worth spending this kind of money, the abolitionist dream of emancipation would be it.

[tomndebb]

@jrodefeld

Completely false. I already posted this link, but here it is for your benefit:

What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting? | Gongol.com

The cost of buying the slaves was roughly identical to the cost of the war and when you factor in the cost in human life, the property destroyed, etc, a buyout would have been cheaper.

Only in retrospect and only if you could have persuaded the North to invest that much money in a buyout to prevent the hypothetical costs of a war that no one actually believed would last longer than three months, (making the offer of a buyout hopelessly unrealistic), and only if you could persuade the South, en masse, to simply overthrow all of their cultural norms and the overwhelming majority of their agricultural endeavors, (which would be like persuading all the current U.S. citizen to give up television and all U.S. farmers to go organic some evening).

You are making unrealistic assumptions based on imaginary claims and then getting mad that no one who has actually paid attention will go along with your absurdities. Further, to do this, you have to make historically inaccurate claims against Lincoln, the person, demonizing him for not having prevented something that occurred before he even took office.

@jrodefeld

And I suggest you read up a bit more about the economic feasibility of a slave buyout (not bailout). Several people have pointed out that a buyout would not have been possible, and I have proved them wrong. It was certainly possible. We cannot know how it would have turned out in the end had Lincoln pursued other means than war, but we do know that every other industrialized nation got rid of slavery without a civil war. Do you at least agree that, if at all possible, abolishing slavery peacefully would have been a superior outcome than what did happen?

You have proved no one wrong. You have provided numbers based on several unsupported assumptions while ignoring the realities of the situation at the time. Your “proof” is a phantom.

To make my earlier point more explicit: at the time the war broke out, neither side actually understood the depth of passion that the other side held regarding their beliefs. Three months was the outside that the vast majority of people gave the war. Proposing a slave buyout, (that the South would have never accepted, anyway), based on costs you calculate from 1865, to a Congress that expected a war to last 1/16th as long, (and expected to result in a few pitched battles on empty land with battle death rates similar to those of the Mexican war at around 1.5% instead on the actual 5% that resulted from increased firepower with no attendant improvement in strategy), is nothing but posturing.

We know how much the war cost, today and you can force the numbers to look the same between a buyout and a war, but in 1861, the numbers that you have to propose for the buyout would have looked absurd to anyone who was contemplating the war.

You make a big deal about other posters “not reading” or “not thinking,” (something you would be well advised to ratchet back), but you have demonstrated large and obvious gaps in both your reading and your ratiocination. The topic might be worth discussing, but if you think your position is a slam dunk, then you need to read and think much more than you currently have.

[jrodefeld]

@Dissonance

It’s just like Pat Buchanan said, if only Britain and that warmonger Churchill hadn’t started World War II by forcing Hitler into attacking Poland.

Okay, lets be realistic here. The North was VASTLY more powerful than the South. Did you even read my OP in the beginning? I provided evidence that Lincoln desired to provoke the South to fire the first shot. That is established history. Just because YOU don’t know about it means nothing. Here is the part of the OP you apparently missed:

*The confederates had sent peace commissioners to Washington to offer to pay the Souths portion of the national debt. Furthermore, Napoleon the Third of France offered to broker a compromise. Yet, Lincoln refused to see any of them. He was determined to go to war. Lincoln promised not to send warships to Fort Sumter, even as he gave the orders for them to approach. Noted historian Shelby Foote wrote that, “Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war.” After Fort Sumter, Lincoln wrote to his naval commander Gustavus Fox thanking him for provoking the reaction he was looking for:

“You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.”

The abuses of the Constitution, the laws of morality, and the flat out illegal activity engaged in by Lincoln and his army are almost unfathomable to us today. Lincoln’s soldiers and agents raped women, burnt courthouses, burnt homes and destroyed and robbed banks. Lincoln locked up over 3000 newspaper reporters in the North because they published articles that were critical of him.

After Lincoln died, the Supreme Court unanimously condemned what he did.*

Does this mean anything to you? I am not supporting the South in any way. But facts are facts. And the fact is, there were many opportunities that Lincoln had to avoid war. He desired a justification for war, period.

[Captain_Amazing]

@jrodefeld

I really cannot accept the notion that cost would be the prohibitive reason against this policy, especially if the cost was spread over several years time.

Why can’t you? And I don’t even think that’s the prohibitive reason against the policy (although I think the cost would have made it unfeasible). The prohibitive reason against the policy is that slave holders never would have agreed to it. The majority of slaveholders wouldn’t have agreed to any sort of emancipation. The prevailing attitude in the south was that emancipation and abolition were evil. The whole reason the Confederate states seceded was because they were afraid that a Republican victory would have led to emancipation. So, had Lincoln proposed something like that, they would have said, first, that just proves our point. The Republicans want to get rid of our slaves, and second, hey, we’re an independent country, you can’t tell us what to do anyway.

Compensated emancipation worked in Washington DC because, first, most of the pro-slavery congressmen had seceded and couldn’t stop the bill, second, Washington was a federal district, so Congress could do whatever they wanted with it, third, there weren’t that many slaves or slaveholders in Washington, DC in the first place, and fourth, the city was crawling with soldiers, so it’s not like the population could have complained had they wanted to. Absent any of those things, it wouldn’t have worked.

You have a timeline problem here. South Carolina seceded in December of 1860, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Georgia in January of 1861, and Texas in February of 1861. Lincoln didn’t become president until March of 1861. At that point, there was nothing he could have done to keep those states in, because they had already left. Lincoln’s only choice was to let them go peacefully, or use force to try to bring them back in. Those were really his only two options in regards to the states that had already left.

[jrodefeld]

I want to expand a little on why I don’t have the respect for Lincoln that out history books tell us we should have. A few quotes of his:

“Do the people of the South really entertain fear that a Republican administration would directly or indirectly interfere with their slaves, or with them about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you that once, as a friend, and still I hope not as an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.”

“Negro equality! Fudge! [19th c. equivalent of…] How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagougism [sp.-DS] as this.”

(v. 3, p. 399. Fragments: Notes for Speeches, Sept. 6, 1859)

“But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence [blame the victim].
It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. …I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life, perhaps more so than in any foreign country, and hence you have come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case.”

(v. 5, pp. 372-5. Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes, Aug. 14, 1862)
*“See our present condition—the country engaged in war! Our White men cutting one another’s throats! And then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another. “Why should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated.” *

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person’s held to labor or service by laws of said State.”

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also so that”
There are many more quotes like this.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Marley23

I don’t think we’re ever going to agree on this. Particularly if you don’t think it’s a problem that the cost of a buyout would have been larger than the national GDP.
I don’t see how a peaceful abolition was possible.

Until Nat Turner’s revolt the Virginia state legislature was actually considering this and most of the Founding Fathers advocated this. Of course that doesn’t mean it would have happened but it wasn’t impossible either considering Brazil (a country far more dependent of slavery) did so by 1889. On the other hand the XIVth and XVth Amendments probably would not have been passed.

[Kimstu]

@jrodefeld

I want to expand a little on why I don’t have the respect for Lincoln that out history books tell us we should have. A few quotes of his:

I’m not sure what point you think you’re making, but you’re way off base if you imagine that the posters you’re arguing with aren’t aware of the racism of Lincoln’s views, or think that Lincoln’s views on race are something to be admired.

The fact is, pretty much every white person in Lincoln’s America, with the exception of a few radical abolitionists, thought that blacks were naturally inferior to whites. The whole society was fundamentally racist, and you’re not revealing any game-changing information by pointing out that Lincoln was racist too.

You seem to be arguing that Lincoln’s racism was a factor in his willingness to engage in a war with the Southern secessionists, which really doesn’t make sense. Surely, if Lincoln had been primarily motivated by anti-black racism, he would have preferred to just let the southern states form their virulently pro-slavery Confederacy unimpeded, thus ensuring that blacks would be kept “in their place” as long as possible.

[Zoe]

you with the face: If the denial is so deep in here that yall can’t even admit the south is more conservative than the rest of the country, I’m bowing out of this discussion. It’s a stupid thing to argue about, seriously.

It is stupid to argue that the Southerners tend to be more politically conservative in their voting that the Midwesterners. Are you just refusing to look at the Purple Maps provided to you? Do you just not want to believe them? The Purple Maps for the election of 2004 are even more detailed that the ones for 2008.

A summary of my thinking would be that the Confederate States of America wrongly fought to preserve the institution of slavery. Individual soldiers fought for any number of reasons. The men and boys were not naturally more moral or less moral that young men anywhere else. The evil and the good live in the hearts of men on both sides. But it was the Confederacy that prolonged slavery that had been rampant on both sides and it was more responsible for the bloody war that could have been avoided.

If one feels ashamed of what her or his ancestors did in promoting slavery in this country, then each person decides what she or he should or can contribute toward making up for that. (This includes decendents of the founders.) No one else determines that for you.

The Confederacy and Southerners should not be used interchangeably.

[Der_Trihs]

@jrodefeld

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also so that”

IIRC, that particular quote was him describing his job as President, to preserve the Union; and was directly followed by one about how as a person he opposed it.

[Captain_Amazing]

@jrodefeld

I want to expand a little on why I don’t have the respect for Lincoln that out history books tell us we should have. A few quotes of his:

Well, I don’t think anybody who knows anything about Lincoln would argue that he was an advocate of racial equality. Mid 19th century America was a time period where, unfortunately, few people were advocates of racial equality. Besides, Lincoln was talking to his audience. People were convinced that Republicans were advocates of racial equality (and some were), and that obviously wasn’t something you could get elected on. So Lincoln had to allay the fears of the voters and counter his critics.

Besides, do you really require of your heroes that they be completely flawless? A person can admire George Washington for victory in the American Revolution while at the same time realizing he owned slaves. He can honor Churchill’s leadership during World War II, while at the same time recognizing he was an imperialist drunk. He can enjoy the writing of Mencken while at the same time knowing he was an elitist misanthrope.

But I ask you again, what was Lincoln’s ulterior motive?

[Camus]

@jrodefeld

The confederates had sent peace commissioners to Washington to offer to pay the Souths portion of the national debt. Furthermore, Napoleon the Third of France offered to broker a compromise. Yet, Lincoln refused to see any of them. He was determined to go to war.

Lincoln did not recognize the legality of states breaking away (and also taking federal property with them). That is not being “determined to go to war.” For all of the selective quotes of Lincoln you have cited, you seem to consistently overlook his first inaugural address. In it, he not only describes the view that secession is unconstitutional and thus legally void, but also stated he had no intention of invading the South and had no intention of banning slavery. The one point he would not back down from, however, was that he would use force if necessary to maintain possession of federal property. Of course, using force to maintain possession of federal property would only be necessary if force was being used to wrest possession of federal property by another party (i.e. self-defense).

Lincoln promised not to send warships to Fort Sumter, even as he gave the orders for them to approach. Noted historian Shelby Foote wrote that, “Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war.”

And yet the entire situation was the creation of the state of South Carolina. Their forces were the ones that demanded possession of Fort Sumter, fired on and prevented a ship (the Star of the West) from reinforcing or resupplying it until finally a fleet was assembled to ensure resupply. They were the ones who were introducing the threat of military force into this situation.

The abuses of the Constitution, the laws of morality, and the flat out illegal activity engaged in by Lincoln and his army are almost unfathomable to us today. Lincoln’s soldiers and agents raped women, burnt courthouses, burnt homes and destroyed and robbed banks.

What laws of morality are you talking about? Aren’t libertarians generally opposed to legislating morality? And as for the abuses of the Union Army - were any of the specific actions you described (but did not provide any cites for) ordered by Lincoln or his generals? You seem to be implying that Confederate soldiers did not commit any rapes against civilians and did not burn or plunder civilian buildings.

But facts are facts. And the fact is, there were many opportunities that Lincoln had to avoid war. He desired a justification for war, period.

That is not a fact, particularly in light of all the other facts you are overlooking to reach this conclusion.

[Dissonance]

@jrodefeld

Okay, lets be realistic here. The North was VASTLY more powerful than the South. Did you even read my OP in the beginning? I provided evidence that Lincoln desired to provoke the South to fire the first shot. That is established history. Just because YOU don’t know about it means nothing.

It really would be nice if we’d be realistic here. A lot of people here have read a great deal more on history during this period than you have. Wanting it to clearly be the South firing the first shots of the war and not the North isn’t Lincoln

He desired a justification for war, period.

If all he wanted was a justification for the war, he already had more than one, in spades. Secession which by definition involved taking up arms against the Union alone was justification for war. The seizing of Federal armories by states in rebellion was in itself justification for war. Charging the officials in the Confederacy with treason and armed insurrection would have been justification for war. Lincoln did none of these; didn’t redeploy the standing Federal Army such as it was at the time to quash the rebellion, and didn’t call for raising 100,000 men to arms until after Fort Sumter - which was four months after the initial secessions. If the CSA truly didn’t desire war, they could have just have not threatened to kill other Americans should they try to resupply Fort Sumter with food or backed down from that threat. The existence of Fort Sumter was not doing harm to South Carolina in any way; the stalemate around it lasting more than the four months it had gone on for already by not taking it by violent force of arms before supplies arrived would have left things in the status quo. That such a slight was so intolerable to South Carolina that they would fire upon fellow Americans rather than allow it to peacefully happen is hardy Lincoln’s fault. I’m sorry, it is the same (il)logic that Buchanan uses to blame Churchill and Britain for causing WW2 by ‘forcing’ and ‘provoking’ poor ole Hitler into having to attack Poland.

Really, that wicked man of war Lincoln was just so gung ho to invade the South that he allowed states to be in open rebellion for four months before tricksing them into shooting first and holding out hopes that the nation would come to its senses.

Describing Lincoln as a racist or his overriding desire being to preserve the Union aren’t the news that you seem to think it is, it’s common knowledge to anyone with a passing knowledge of the Civil War. By and large abolitionists were racists. They didn’t view blacks as equal to whites; they viewed holding other humans in chattel slavery as wrong. The entire country could be fairly described as racist at the time, and it’s hardly odd that Lincoln’s primary desire was to preserve the Union. I’d note that secessions started before he was even inaugurated not out of fear of anything he’d done or said he planned to do, but fear of what he might try to do - which, given his desire to preserve the Union over all else was an ill placed fear.

And oddly, this warmonger Lincoln favored the easiest terms for reconstruction of the South, far, far less harsh than what Congress wanted to take for retribution.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Dissonance

The existence of Fort Sumter was not doing harm to South Carolina in any way; the stalemate around it lasting more than the four months it had gone on for already by not taking it by violent force of arms before supplies arrived would have left things in the status quo.

Well, from South Carolina’s standpoint, the existence of Ft. Sumter was doing it harm. It’s certainly a threat to sovereignty to have foreign, potentially hostile troops on one’s territory. It’s sort of like how, after the American Revolution, the existence of British forts in the Northwest Territory was a matter of contention between the two countries. This is even more the case in the case of Ft. Sumter, because, instead of being in relatively uninhabited territory, it was in an urban center and South Carolina’s major port.

[DanBlather]

@Captain_Amazing

Well, from South Carolina’s standpoint, the existence of Ft. Sumter was doing it harm. It’s certainly a threat to sovereignty to have foreign, potentially hostile troops on one’s territory. It’s sort of like how, after the American Revolution, the existence of British forts in the Northwest Territory was a matter of contention between the two countries. This is even more the case in the case of Ft. Sumter, because, instead of being in relatively uninhabited territory, it was in an urban center and South Carolina’s major port.

It was really provocative that the US government built the fort after the South had so politely requested to secede.

[Dissonance]

@Captain_Amazing

Well, from South Carolina’s standpoint, the existence of Ft. Sumter was doing it harm. It’s certainly a threat to sovereignty to have foreign, potentially hostile troops on one’s territory. It’s sort of like how, after the American Revolution, the existence of British forts in the Northwest Territory was a matter of contention between the two countries. This is even more the case in the case of Ft. Sumter, because, instead of being in relatively uninhabited territory, it was in an urban center and South Carolina’s major port.

I can see where you are coming from and perhaps should have been more explicit in my wording, though I do stand by it not doing any harm. It had the* potential *to do harm by firing on the city or blockading the port by firing on any vessels approaching it. Neither of these had happened during the 4 months status quo standoff before the Confederate shelling and seizure of the fort; the only shots fired on vessels approaching the area came from Confederate batteries driving off the Star of the West.

[Sampiro]

If you’re not familiar with me, I have crossed swords many many MANY times with many of the Dopers in this thread on issues of slavery and the Confederacy, so often that it’s a bit weird being on their side now, but you’re simply wrong or are misinterpreting many of the things in your OP and subsequent arguments.

@jrodefeld

I provided evidence that Lincoln desired to provoke the South to fire the first shot.

If by provoke you mean that he refused to run from Charleston with his tail between his legs, that’s a possible interpretation. To me, provoking them would have been if he had opened fire on Charleston from one of the Federal forts. Major Anderson evacuated the fort he occupied to cross to the unfinished Fort Sumter not to provoke but for the simple reason his men were starving and out of supplies and Sumter had more provisions and was better set up to withstand a shelling, but he was under the strictest of orders not only not to fire upon Charleston but not to return fire if fired upon.

Anderson had big guns and ammo at his disposal, he could have returned fire. HE WAS AN ARTILLERY INSTRUCTOR AT WEST POINT- HE KNEW HOW TO DO IT. He could have done serious damage to the Confederate batteries- the cannons at Sumter were longer and more powerful than those firing on them- but Lincoln was determined that if any blood were drawn the south was to draw it. To say he provoked it is to say that if you tell me “get out of my way or I’ll knock you down” and I don’t get out of your way that I’ve provoked you into a fight.

*The confederates had sent peace commissioners to Washington to offer to pay the Souths portion of the national debt.

Pay it with what exactly? Did they take a printing press and money stock paper with them or a handwritten note that said “IOU-32 million wagon loads of cotton- Love Jeff, Alex, Judah and the Gang”? It wasn’t to pay the debt, it was to determine what portion was fair, and there’s a more than semantic difference, plus they were not fully authorized- “ambassadors without portfolio” if you will. There were more than a few Confederate senators and Congressmen who said essentially “screw the national debt- tabula rasa dude” to the notion.

Furthermore, Napoleon the Third of France offered to broker a compromise. Yet, Lincoln refused to see any of them.

Napoleon III never sent ambassadors or emissaries to D.C. for the purpose of negotiating a peace. There was nobody for Lincoln to refuse to see. N3 was actually wishy washy on the issue- most of the times he didn’t meet with peace treaty advocates, none- repeat NONE of whom were authorized to negotiate a peace anyway and often as not were men like Slidell or Jewett who took it upon themselves to approach him.

Unless you’re saying Lincoln refused to see the Confederate reps, in which case this is completely understandable. To meet with them would be to acknowledge the legitimacy of a rebel government. While it’s associated with the late 20th century the notion of “We do not negotiate with terrorists” was well in force long before the 1980s or even before Fort Sumter.

Imagine that Cuban activists decided to make Miami an independent city completely out of the jurisdiction of Florida of the USA. They seize its airport and its harbors and take control of all roads in and out of the city, and they do this without bloodshed. They proclaim (whatever is Spanish for) the Free and Independent Municipality of Miami". They are largely funded by drug lords (no more loathsome to the minds of our day than slave masters were to abolitionists and anti-expansionists of the time) who funnel vast amounts of money to them.

Representatives from this Free State of Miami decide to prove that they only want to break away in peace and come to D.C. with letters of credit for $20 billion dollars- totally legit offer. (This is something the South did not have incidentally- the high water mark of their treasury was $15 million borrowed from Alanger- that’s far less than $1 billion today.) They say “We are here to pay for the airport we seized and to make downpayments on the private and corporately owned property we have seized in our independence.”

Keep in mind- nobody has been killed by these people- they only want to peacefully withdraw from the USA and to make Miami a free and independent state.

How likely do you think the Obama White House or the Congress, Democrat or Republican, would be to negotiating with them?

He was determined to go to war. Lincoln promised not to send warships to Fort Sumter, even as he gave the orders for them to approach.

He didn’t. He sent provision ships. If he had sent warships they would have blasted the hell out of Charleston- the Confederacy had no navy to speak of yet and at its height they had fewer ships than Cornelius Vanderbilt alone would later lease to the Union.

More later.