Jeff_42, there’s really nothing to be sorry for. On the other post I was mainly frustrated because my current had generated eddys, that is, that I had started side argument that I was afraid would get out of hand, and we’d lose sight of my other thesis. No big deal.
I think you’re right that few Northerners were willing to have a war to end slavery. Some hated it, some were just fine with it, some didn’t care, but few were willing to die to end it. Horace Greeley, anti-slavery editor of one of the big New York papers, wanted to let the South go in peace (provided they held tribunals on the matter - a proposal a few decades ahead of its time!) I have glossed over Northern opinion because, in my opinion, any level of analysis will reveal that the North did not start the war.
This, however, leads me to the question: How many Northerners were really willing to fight to preserve the Union? Secession was not immediately followed by invasion. Even after the Union was supposed to be pursuing actions to defeat rebels who were trying to secede illegally, there was still a lot of thumb-twiddling. In the opening period of the war, I am quite convince that the reason Northern military folks started preparing to fight had little to with slavery or union. Rather, it was the simple proximity of the District of Columbia to the South that put the Federals into fighting moods. I don’t even think the river separated the two at the time (am forgetting when Arlington County was incorporated into Virginia). Having fired upon a Federal fort, the Confederates were at least a psychological threat to the capital, whether you considered them mere rebels or a foreign power. Securing a buffer zone around DC meant capturing bits of Virginia, and war waited just round the corner.
As to Lincoln trying to force the South’s hand, I don’t know. Naturally we’re speculating on his inner motivations. I think of him as primarily a unionist who couldn’t contain his revulsion at slavery. If he could have waved a magic wand and freed all the slaves, I bet he would have done it, but if he (hypothetically) had had to choose between free soil and union, he would have chosen the union. Both are purely hypothetical.
BobT, I think four years is a long time in politics. You’re right that 1860 could scarcely have been different. Add up all the popular totals for the non-Lincolns, and you get 61% of the vote, and a minority of the electoral vote. (Yes, I’ve looked at the state-by-state results, and only two or three states would change hands … Oregon, California, and New Jersey, maybe? Lincoln won nearly all of his states with overall majorities.)
I think a lot could have changed by 1864. The Democrats could have had a remarriage. The Constitutional Union party could have joined them. Voters in New York, or Pennsylvania, or Mass. could have gotten tired of the Republicans’ pro-Western message, and gone back to the parties they had known before 1856. Even if Lincoln had squeaked to reelection in 1864 against monolithic Southern opposition, I can’t imagine that Republican control of Congress or the Courts was assured.
