President Lincoln brought the North and the South into...?

M

m185

New member
...civil war in order to save the United States as they were, or keep the South from a mostly peaceful and orderly secession. I understand the motivation of the South was to keep slavery legal, but that is not the direct reason we entered into war. Our Civil War was to keep the South united with the North. I do not condone slavery; nevertheless, I do believe that the colonies united by choice and by choice should be given the permitted to peaceably succeed, if that is the will of the people. I think Lincoln was wrong in principle to go to war with the South. What do you think?
No...I'm really not a Southerner.
 
You are correct.

Lincoln basically made himself dictator. (for what he believed to be good reasons)

The 14th amendment made us all citizens of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (all caps for a reason........it's a legal fiction).

"Persons" are considered corporations.
 
A lot of good men died on both sides of that war. Was it worth it? Fact is, if the Civil War hadn't been fought there would have been a war later over the west.

As for peaceably seceding (not succeeding, as some uneducated folk say), have you not heard of Fort Sumter?
 
That would be the Southern view for sure. The Northern view was that the war was fought justly to preserve the Union against an illegal secession and revolution against the country. Slavery was the flash issue, the overall picture was much deeper than that, involving unfair tariffs, fees, and legislation that the Southern states felt were deeply oppressive and favored the industrialized North way too much.
 
I do agree that what Lincoln did was unconstitutional and treason really. I have been in many arguments about it over the years but it is one subject hold firm on. Also the south wanted to secede due, to begin with the tariffs put on cotton exports, as well as slave trade issues...it basically boiled down to the more industrialised North stealing what they could from the Southern states. They had every right to do what they did and secede from the Union.
Had they been allowed to secede I do agree that Spain, and quite possibly England would have tried to take advantage of the 2 Nations weakened due to the split...thus more than likely making it a possibility, of a reformation back into the United States but with a costly war.
 
I don't think States have the right to secede.

They need to work out their differences in Congress.

If they can't, then they are overruled.
 
Uh yeah. You really want America to be split in two? I would have waged war on the south too as long as it kept America united. In the long run, that choice made us the great country that we are today. Imagine if America was split in two and we were constantly having to compete militarily and economically. Spain would have taken over all of Central America in the early 1900's and then worked its way north eventually taking the south anyways.
 
Slavery is the popular cause behind the division, but it really went a lot deeper than that, and so did Lincoln's motivation to preserve the union. The economies of the North and South in the mid 19th century had developed very differently, but still were dependent on one another. The agrarian South needed a supply of cheap (free) labor and finished goods while the industrialized North needed raw materials. The South had a demand for it's cotton and tobacco in Europe and they could also get their finished goods from the Europeans. This threatened the Northern economy because they would lose a significant market for the goods to European competitiion and have to pay higher price for raw materials from the South or elsewhere. It was all about the money not the slaves.
 
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