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The American Civil War Timeline- 150th Anniversary (1 Viewer)

Northern aggression at its finest. Slavery would have ended on its own insofar as if the south had been allowed to break with the union they would have had to eliminate slavery or else risk having no one to trade with as Europe had banned slavery years earlier.This war was about money, not morality!Carry on.
If you truly hold this viewpoint (which is certainly legitimate) I hope you're willing to defend it when we get to 1861 in the narrative. That's still a ways away, but when we get there, I intend to explore in full detail all of the motivations on both sides, and that's when we'll hopefully discover how much truth, if any, there is to your assertion.
I think it's correct that slavery would have eventually ended in the Confederacy, probably by the early 20th century. There would have been economic pressure from trade partners including those in the North.It's unknown how a partitioned America would have developed after 1861. Would an agrarian South have benefited from the industrial revolution, or would the economic gulf between them and the North continue to grow? Would the North have become as great a 20th century world power without the Southeast? I suspect even if the Confederacy had been allowed to secede, there would have inevitably been clashes with the USA on the Western frontier that would have eventually led to a Civil War.
 
Finally caught up. Great thread.

I have an ancestor that was a Confederate soldier, 3rd Georgia Volunteer Infantry.

On a girly side note, I go to Victorian balls and I am in the process of making a ball gown based on the Civil War era. My intent is to make is as period correct as possible.
I imagine the materials used for balls in the antebellum era (prior to the war) were different from gowns made during the Civil War itself. Probably with raw materials in short supply, women (especially those from the South) had to be creative.
Exhibit A
 
Finally caught up. Great thread.

I have an ancestor that was a Confederate soldier, 3rd Georgia Volunteer Infantry.

On a girly side note, I go to Victorian balls and I am in the process of making a ball gown based on the Civil War era. My intent is to make is as period correct as possible.
I imagine the materials used for balls in the antebellum era (prior to the war) were different from gowns made during the Civil War itself. Probably with raw materials in short supply, women (especially those from the South) had to be creative.
Exhibit A
I swear, I thought of the very same scene from her show.
 
The underlying issue was slavery, and it was the root cause of the war.
Just a question I have always had - everyone says slavery was THE cause of the war. Obviously it was a major issue and the hot one at the time of the war. But wasn't THE issue really the south's belief that the states had the right to do what they wished? You had SC threatening secession in Jackson's presidency over taxation. So was it really going to war over slavery or going to war over the right of the state to be its own sovereign (and to have slavery if it wished)?edit because I can't spell
not sure of the book I saw it in but IIRC many simply joined by peer pressure. Once there was a north/south army and all, the men not a part of it didn't want to be thought of as the ones that didn't fight for their country or the only ones in their area not fighting etc. Once they started wrestling up the last little bit of recruits, that little last bit would be as high as 20-30% of the armies.
 
The underlying issue was slavery, and it was the root cause of the war.
Just a question I have always had - everyone says slavery was THE cause of the war. Obviously it was a major issue and the hot one at the time of the war. But wasn't THE issue really the south's belief that the states had the right to do what they wished? You had SC threatening secession in Jackson's presidency over taxation. So was it really going to war over slavery or going to war over the right of the state to be its own sovereign (and to have slavery if it wished)?edit because I can't spell
not sure of the book I saw it in but IIRC many simply joined by peer pressure. Once there was a north/south army and all, the men not a part of it didn't want to be thought of as the ones that didn't fight for their country or the only ones in their area not fighting etc. Once they started wrestling up the last little bit of recruits, that little last bit would be as high as 20-30% of the armies.
I'm not sure its a binary issue; you can't really say it was THE issue or THE one and only root cause, but it seems silly to mask it in anything else like states rights. Free state or slave state drove a lot of political issues; but most Americans just want to be left alone, free to live their own lives. When the Army of Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania in 1863, they were surprised at how indifferent the locals were. War had not, up until then, touched their lives, and they didn't much care one way or another - they just want the rebels and the yanks to both leave, the sooner the better.These sectional differences simmered and boiled for more than 80 years. It is, by definition, a complex answer to the question of what caused the civil war. Personally, I think it was largely that over time, extreme positions by the abolitionists and the fire-eaters pulled the country into something that should have been avoided.I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
 
I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that view. The South's economy was built on slavery and the people in power were almost all part of the slave owner aristocracy. Can you think of any ruling group in history that decided to voluntarily destroy what they considered the source of their wealth and power?
 
Insomniac said:
BobbyLayne said:
I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that view. The South's economy was built on slavery and the people in power were almost all part of the slave owner aristocracy. Can you think of any ruling group in history that decided to voluntarily destroy what they considered the source of their wealth and power?
Hard to argue with solid marxist theory. :bag:

Yes, when I look at this, I'm confident Americans would have taken the next logical step. I'm just not sure if in 1885 it would still be the USA or the CSA making that move. On the other hand...I think you bring up a pretty good point, snarky remark aside. I would like to think that we (the USA) or they (CSA) or the USA after reunification would have abolished slavery. I want to believe that, I hope that - but honestly, I am not sure.

Free labor encourages efficiency, much more so than forced labor. The South, if it was allowed to secede, or won a second war of independence, would have modernized out of necessity. But would we have achieved any measure of racial equality? Hard to say - before the war, racism was just as bad in the north. That didn't change with a couple of amendments to the constitution.

Personally I think that a good deal of the lingering sectional resentment came not from having lost the war, but the harsh and humiliating conditions in the south during reconstruction. You could even argue that it was the post-war suppression of southern whites that set back race relations decades. But staying on point, I do think that when we look around the globe and see that country after country already had or would soon make slavery illegal, I think it is inevitable that slavery in the U.S. would have ended. My guess (and its nothing more than that) is it was already on its last legs.

 
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The Birth of the Republican Party, concluded

The campaigns in the North were intense and bitter in 1854, nowhere near more than in Douglas' own state of Illinois. Douglas opened the canvass with a speech on September 1, in Chicago, where a hostile crowd shouted him down for two hours until he strode angrily off the platform and headed for friendlier districts downstate. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln was "aroused...as he had never been before" by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Still calling himself a Whig, Lincoln took the stump on behalf of anti-Nebraska candidates for the legislature, hoping that victory would forge a legislative majority to elect him to the U.S. Senate. Lincoln and Douglas confronted each other on the same platform in speeches at Springfield and Peoria in October. (These are not to be confused with the famous and immortal debates that would take place between these two men 4 years later, which we will get to.) In these addresses Lincoln set forth for the first time the themes that he would carry into the presidency 6 years later.

But before we examine these themes and speeches, I think it's time to take a look at exactly who Abraham Lincoln was, and how he got to this point. Over the course of this draft, I intend to offer biographies of all of the major figures of the Civil War, and I can't think of any better place to start than with Honest Abe. Much of this, or at least some of it, should be familiar to most of you reading this. But we'll do it anyhow.

 
Abraham Lincoln Part One

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, two farmers, in a one-room log cabin on the 348-acre Sinking Spring Farm, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now part of LaRue County), making him the first president born in the west. Lincoln was not given a middle name. His ancestor Samuel Lincoln had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts from England in the 17th century. His grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln, had moved to Kentucky, where he owned over 5,000 acres, and was ambushed and killed by an Indian raid in 1786.

(The fact that Lincoln was born in Kentucky is one of the great historical ironies in American history, because Jefferson Davis, his adversary during the Civil War, was also born in Kentucky one year earlier. Kentucky was a "border" state during the Civil War, with citizens fighting on both sides. Lincoln's family would move North; Davis's family would move South. There is almost a perfect equilibrium to these facts, and I personally can't think of any situation in history that comes close to matching it.)

Thomas Lincoln was a respected citizen of rural Kentucky. He owned several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm, although he was not wealthy. The family belonged to a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards frowning on alcohol consumption and dancing, and many church members were opposed to slavery. Abraham himself never joined their church, or any other church.

In 1816, the Lincoln family left Kentucky to avoid the expense of fighting for one of their properties in court, and made a new start in Perry County, Indiana (now in Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery", and partly because of difficulties with land deeds in Kentucky. Abraham's father disapproved of slavery on religious grounds and because it was hard to compete economically with farms operated by slaves. Unlike land in the Northwest Territory, Kentucky never had a proper U.S. survey, and farmers often had difficulties proving title to their property.

When Lincoln was 9, his mother, then 34 years old, died of milk sickness. Soon afterwards, his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Lincoln and his stepmother were close; he called her "Mother" for the rest of his life, but he became increasingly distant from his father. Abraham felt his father wasn't a success, and didn't want to be like him. In later years, he would occasionally lend his father money. In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois.

The next year, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Lincoln's formal education consisted of about 18 months of schooling, but he was largely self-educated and an avid reader. He was also skilled with an axe and a talented local wrestler, the latter of which helped give him confidence. Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals, even for food.

Lincoln's first love was Ann Rutledge. He met her when he first moved to New Salem, and by 1835 they had reached a romantic understanding. Rutledge, however, died on August 25, probably of typhoid fever. Earlier, in either 1833 or 1834, he had met Mary Owens, the sister of his friend Elizabeth Abell, when she was visiting from her home in Kentucky. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match proposed by Elizabeth between him and her sister, if Mary ever returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836 and Lincoln courted her for a time; however they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter from Springfield, to which he had moved that April to begin his law practice, suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied, and the courtship was over.

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, from a wealthy slaveholding family based in Lexington, Kentucky. They met in Springfield in December 1839, and were engaged sometime around that Christmas. A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding approached.They later met at a party, and then married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's married sister. In 1844, the couple bought a house on Eighth and Jackson in Springfield, near Lincoln's law office. The Lincolns soon had a budding family, with the birth of son Robert Todd Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois on August 1, 1843, and second son Edward Baker Lincoln on March 10, 1846, also in Springfield.According to a house girl, Abraham "was remarkably fond of children".The Lincolns did not believe in strict rules and tight boundaries when it came to their children.

Robert, however, would be the only one of the Lincolns' children to survive into adulthood. Edward Lincoln died on February 1, 1850 in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis.The Lincolns' grief over this loss was somewhat assuaged by the birth of William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln nearly eleven months later, on December 21. But Willie himself died of a fever at the age of eleven on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during President Lincoln's first term. The Lincolns' fourth son Thomas "Tad" Lincoln was born on April 4, 1853, and, although he outlived his father, died at the age of eighteen on July 16, 1871 in Chicago. Robert Lincoln eventually went on to attend Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College. His (and by extension, his father's) last known lineal descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died December 24, 1985.

The death of the Lincolns' sons had profound effects on both Abraham and Mary. Later in life, Mary Todd Lincoln found herself unable to cope with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and this (in conjunction with what some historians consider to have been pre-existing bipolar disorder ) eventually led Robert Lincoln to involuntarily commit her to a mental health asylum in 1875. Abraham Lincoln himself was contemporaneously described as suffering from "melancholy" throughout his legal and political life, a condition which modern mental health professionals would now typically characterize as clinical depression.

 
Abraham Lincoln Part Two

Lincoln began his political career in March 1832 at age 23 when he announced his candidacy for the Illinois General Assembly. He made the decision based on self-confidence; he felt himself equal to any man. He was esteemed by the residents of New Salem, but he didn't have an education, powerful friends, or money. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. Before the election he served as a captain in a company of the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. Lincoln returned from the militia after a few months and was able to campaign throughout the county before the August 6 election. At 6 feet 4 inches, he was tall and "strong enough to intimidate any rival." At his first political speech, he grabbed a man accosting a supporter by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and threw him. When the votes were counted, Lincoln finished eighth out of thirteen candidates (only the top four were elected), but he did manage to secure 277 out of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.

In 1834, he won an election to the state legislature. He was labeled a Whig, but ran a bipartisan campaign. He then decided to become a lawyer, and began teaching himself law by reading Commentaries on the Laws of England. Admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, that April, and began to practice law with John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin, who let Lincoln have the run of his law library while studying to be a lawyer.With a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments, Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer. In 1841, Lincoln entered law practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought "a studious young man". He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a representative from Sangamon County, affiliated with the Whig party. In 1837, he and another legislator declared that slavery was "founded on both injustice and bad policy", the first time he had publicly opposed slavery. In the 1835–1836 legislative session he'd voted to restrict suffrage to whites only. He would later say that he had been against slavery since he was a boy, but being labelled an abolitionist was "political suicide" in Sangamon County in those years, and so he chose his words carefully when discussing the issue publicly. Lincoln was a Whig, and since the early 1830s had strongly admired the policies and leadership of Henry Clay."I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig" he professed to friends in 1861.The party favored economic expansion such as improving roads and increasing trade.

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term. As a House member, Lincoln was a dedicated Whig, showing up for most votes and giving speeches that echoed the party line. He used his office as an opportunity to speak out against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory — that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood". Lincoln's main stand against Polk occurred in his Spot Resolutions: The war had begun with a violent confrontation on territory disputed by Mexico and Texas,[ but as Lincoln pointed out, Polk had insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil". Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed, and proof that that spot was on American soil. Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it, and its introduction resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district; one Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln." Despite his admiration for Henry Clay, Lincoln was a key early supporter of Zachary Taylor's candidacy for the 1848 presidential election. When Lincoln's term ended, the incoming Taylor administration offered him the governorship of the Oregon Territory. The territory leaned heavily Democratic, and Lincoln doubted they would elect him as governor or as a senator after they were admitted to the union, so he returned to Springfield.

Back in Springfield, Lincoln turned most of his energies to making a living practicing law, even appearing before the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing a case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge. By the mid-1850s, Lincoln was representing competing transportation interests; the river barges and the railroads. As a riverboat man, Lincoln had initially favored riverboat interests, but ultimately he represented whoever hired him.In 1849, he had received a patent for a "device to buoy vessels over shoals". Lincoln's goal had been to lessen the draft of a river craft by pushing horizontal floats into the water alongside the hull. The floats would have served as temporary ballast tanks.The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is still the only person to hold a patent and serve as President of the United States. As the 1850s began, Lincoln also argued cases on behalf of the railroad industry. In 1851, he represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret, who had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to the railroad on the grounds that it had changed its originally planned route. Lincoln argued that as a matter of law a corporation is not bound by its original charter when that charter can be amended in the public interest, that the newer proposed Alton & Sangamon route was superior and less expensive, and that accordingly the corporation had a right to sue Mr. Barret for his delinquent payment. He won this case, and the decision by the Illinois Supreme Court was eventually cited by 25 other courts throughout the United States.Lincoln appeared in front the of the Illinois Supreme Court 175 times, 51 times as sole counsel, of which, 31 were decided in his favor.

Lincoln's most notable criminal trial came in 1858 when he defended William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker.The case is famous for Lincoln's use of judicial notice to show an eyewitness had lied on the stand. After the witness testified to having seen the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac to show that the moon on that date was at such a low angle it could not have produced enough illumination to see anything clearly. Based on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.

 
Insomniac said:
BobbyLayne said:
I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that view. The South's economy was built on slavery and the people in power were almost all part of the slave owner aristocracy. Can you think of any ruling group in history that decided to voluntarily destroy what they considered the source of their wealth and power?
Hard to argue with solid marxist theory. ;)

Yes, when I look at this, I'm confident Americans would have taken the next logical step. I'm just not sure if in 1885 it would still be the USA or the CSA making that move. On the other hand...I think you bring up a pretty good point, snarky remark aside. I would like to think that we (the USA) or they (CSA) or the USA after reunification would have abolished slavery. I want to believe that, I hope that - but honestly, I am not sure.

Free labor encourages efficiency, much more so than forced labor. The South, if it was allowed to secede, or won a second war of independence, would have modernized out of necessity. But would we have achieved any measure of racial equality? Hard to say - before the war, racism was just as bad in the north. That didn't change with a couple of amendments to the constitution.

Personally I think that a good deal of the lingering sectional resentment came not from having lost the war, but the harsh and humiliating conditions in the south during reconstruction. You could even argue that it was the post-war suppression of southern whites that set back race relations decades. But staying on point, I do think that when we look around the globe and see that country after country already had or would soon make slavery illegal, I think it is inevitable that slavery in the U.S. would have ended. My guess (and its nothing more than that) is it was already on its last legs.
I got sucked in to comment, despite my intentions. I suggest you read Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II written by Douglas A. Blackmon. He provides evidence that slavery in the United Stated continued well into the 20th century. I think you will find it quite eye opening.

It looks like we are supposed to copy and paste other peoples work in this thread so:

In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history—when a cynical new form of slavery was resurrected from the ashes of the Civil War and re-imposed on hundreds of thousands of African-Americans until the dawn of World War II.

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel Corp.—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of "free" black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.

The neoslavery system exploited legal loopholes and federal policies which discouraged prosecution of whites for continuing to hold black workers against their wills. As it poured millions of dollars into southern government treasuries, the new slavery also became a key instrument in the terrorization of African Americans seeking full participation in the U.S. political system.

Based on a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude. It also reveals the stories of those who fought unsuccessfully against the re-emergence of human labor trafficking, the modern companies that profited most from neoslavery, and the system’s final demise in the 1940s, partly due to fears of enemy propaganda about American racial abuse at the beginning of World War II.

SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME is a moving, sobering account of a little-known crime against African Americans, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.

 
Those are the basic facts of Abraham Lincoln leading up to his 1854 speeches, which I will get to. Of course there are all sorts of interesting trivial facts about the man. I will answer a few of them, and then if anyone wants to add their own thoughts, please do so.

Was Abraham Lincoln religious?

This question comes up every once in a while. Lincoln frequently referenced God and quoted the Bible, yet never formally joined any church. He was private about his beliefs and respected the beliefs of others. Since his assassination, many attempts have been made to define his beliefs as either religious or secular. He was said to be an admirer of the deist author Thomas Paine, and it has been reported that he wrote a manuscript essay challenging orthodox Christianity modeled on Paine's book The Age of Reason, which a friend burned to protect him from ridicule. According to biographer Rev. William Barton, Lincoln likely had written an essay something of this character, but it was not likely that it was burned in such a manner.While Lincoln never joined any church, there is disagreement about whether he experienced a conversion to Christianity later in life, particularly during his tenure as president. His close personal friend, bodyguard, and biographer Ward Hill Lamon said:

Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way change his religious ideas, opinions or beliefs, from the time he left Springfield till the day of his death. I do not know just what they were, never having heard him explain them in detail, but I am very sure he gave no outward indications of his mind having undergone any change in that regard while here.

However another close individual, Lincoln's wife and widow, wrote exactly the opposite opinion of her husband's faith:

As my husband was known to be the most loving and devoted husband & father we will allow these falsehoods a place where they deserve. We all — the whole world have been greatly shocked — at the fearful ideas — Herndon — has advanced regarding Mr. Lincoln's religious views. You, who knew him so well & held so many conversations with him, as far back as twenty years since, know what they were. A man, who never took the name of the Maker in vain, who always read his Bible diligently, who never failed to rely on God's promises & looked upon Him for protection, surely such a man as this, could not have been a disbeliever, or any other than what he was, a true Christian gentleman. No one, but such a man as Herndon could venture — to suggest such an idea. From the time of the death of our little Edward, I believe my husband's heart was directed towards religion & as time passed on - when Mr. Lincoln became elevated to Office - with the care of a great Nation, upon his shoulders - when devastating war was upon us then indeed to my knowledge - did his great heart go up daily, hourly, in prayer to God - for his sustaining power. When too - the overwhelming sorrow came upon us, our beautiful bright angelic boy, Willie was called away from us, to his Heavenly Home, with God's chastising hand upon us - he turned his heart to Christ.

So who knows? I suspect given the time in which he lived and the nature of the man, it would be unlikely that Lincoln was not a believer in Christianity, but I have no more way of knowing this than anyone else.

How did Lincoln feel about Blacks?

This really depends on who you ask. Certain African American scholars, (for instance Obama's buddy Professor Henry Gates) have made a career asserting that Lincoln was a racist who cared nothing about Black people or the fact that they were slaves. Ironically enough, some Southern revisionist historians tend to agree with this assessment. On the other hand, mainstream historians suggest the opposite: that Lincoln, though a man of his times, (and therefore racist by default) was in fact the great liberator that he is romantically considered.

I won't get too deeply into this issue right now because we're going to be exploring it as part of the narrative. In the narrative I will be following the mainstream interpretations of Lincoln's actions because that is the source material I have chosen to work with. However, where I am made aware of a contradiction or disagreement that has been made by one of the revisionist historians, I will try to include it.

 
It looks like we are supposed to copy and paste other peoples work in this thread so:
This is done not out of some attempt to steal the credit for other people's work, but, at least on my part, because in most cases other people have explained certain facts much better than I ever could. When I think it makes more sense for me to summarize or tell the story myself, I do. When I believe that its important to add my own thoughts or opinions, I have.
 
It looks like we are supposed to copy and paste other peoples work in this thread so:
This is done not out of some attempt to steal the credit for other people's work, but, at least on my part, because in most cases other people have explained certain facts much better than I ever could. When I think it makes more sense for me to summarize or tell the story myself, I do. When I believe that its important to add my own thoughts or opinions, I have.
:thumbup: makes sense
 
Insomniac said:
BobbyLayne said:
I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that view. The South's economy was built on slavery and the people in power were almost all part of the slave owner aristocracy. Can you think of any ruling group in history that decided to voluntarily destroy what they considered the source of their wealth and power?
Lincoln thought Slavery would die out in the South in about the 1950s. He was fine with that, til later in the war.
 
Insomniac said:
BobbyLayne said:
I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that view. The South's economy was built on slavery and the people in power were almost all part of the slave owner aristocracy. Can you think of any ruling group in history that decided to voluntarily destroy what they considered the source of their wealth and power?
Lincoln thought Slavery would die out in the South in about the 1950s. He was fine with that, til later in the war.
Source?
 
The Kansas-Nebraska Act Part One

The genesis of Kansas-Nebraska lay in the same impulse that had propelled Americans westward from the beginning. Restless settlers and land speculators had begun to cast covetous eyes on the fertile soil of the Kansas and Platte river valleys. By 1852, also, the idea of a transcontinental railroad through the region had become the dream of entrepreneurs, politicians, and frontiersmen alike. But until the government extracted land cessions from the Indians and organized the area as a territory, the region could not be surveyed and farmers could not settle there. Southerners were in no hurry to organize this territory, for it lay north of 36-30 where slavery was excluded by the Missouri Compromise. Besides, they preferred a southern route for a Pacific expansion through the already organized territory of New Mexico, with New Orleans as its eastern terminus.

It so happened that two Illinois Democrats- William A. Richardson and Stephen A. Douglas- were chairmen respectively of the House and Senate committees on territories. Both were champions of Young America's manifest destiny to expand ever westward. A large investor in Chicago real estate, Douglas had enhanced the value of his property by securing a federal land grant for a railroad from that city to Mobile. Perhaps hoping to repeat the scenario from Chicago to San Francisco, Douglas and Richardson in 1853 reported bills to organize Nebraska territory embrasing most of the remaining portion of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36-30. The House quickly passed the measure, but opposition from southern senators tabled in March 1853. To get his bill enacted, Doughlas needed the support of at least 6 southern senators. And they let him know exactly what it was going to cost. From Senators Atchinson of Missouri, Butler of South Carolina, Mason and Hunter of Virginia (collectively known as the "F Street Mess") came the message: if Douglas wanted Nebraska he must repeal the ban on slavery there and place "slaveholder and non-slaveholder upon terms of equality."

Douglas knew that such action would "raise a hell of a storm" in the North. So he first tried to outflank the Missouri Compromise instead of repealing it. His initial version of the Nebraska bill in January 1854 provided that Nebraska would come in "with or without slavery as per its constitution." This was not accepted by F Street, who correctly recognized it as a dodge. So Douglas took the fateful step, He added an explicit repeal of the ban on slavey north of the Missouri Compromise borders. More than that, his new bill organized two territories: Kansas and Nebraska. This looked like a device to reserve Kansas for slavery and Nebraska for freedom, especially since the climate and soil of eastern Kansas wre similar to those of the Missouri river basin in Missouri, where most of the slavers in that state were concentrated.

This did indeed provoke a hell of a storm that made the debates of 1850 look like a gentle shower. The first clouds blew up from the Pierce administration itself. The president feared the political consequences of repudiating a covenant sanctified by 34 years of national life. Except for Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and Secretary of the Navy James Dobbins (of North Carolina), the cabinet opposed the repeal clause. The Administration drafted a vague alternative that would have referred the whole question of slavery to the Supreme Court. But this did not satisfy the F Street Mess. With Davis and Douglas they confronted the president with an ultimatum: endorse repeal or lose the South. Pierce surrendere. Moreover, he agreed to make the revised Kansas-Nebraska bill "a test of party orthodoxy."

This decision by President Pierce would prove to have disastrous consequences for the nation.
Once again, we see the South working within the confines of the Constitution to affect policy so long as they get what they want. The story repeats itself so much that sometimes I'm truly amazed that anyone tries to couch the actions of the rebels in terms other then criminal and traitor.I don't think you captured the true essence of Stephen Douglass here, though. He was a tremendous politician. He wasn't simply someone out to make money on land, and then someone to back down to a pwoerful voting block. The man had Clintonesque political skills and more ability and was becoming one of the more powerful men in America. In the nd, I beleive, he finally began to make this deal not for the assumptions here, but becuse he was trying to buy his ticket to the White House in the future and he knew that he was going to need the southern voting block to get there.

Franklin Pierce is considered by many to be one of the most ineffective Preisdent's we have ever had. In fact after Pierce and the even-worse Buchanan we see most of the ill fated Presidents as those who served during the time leading up to the Civil War. Men like these two, and Fillmore, and Vna Buren were simply unable to lead in any meaningful fashion. They had the unfortunate fate of being the generation of leaders that followed the founders and were probably doomed to fail - similar to the Washington to Adams transition. But that tail end of the second generation of leaders - that starting with John Quincy and ended with Buchanan - was probably a collection of the most ineffective and weak executives this country has ever had over a long period of time, and save for Jackson and Polk, history usually does these men a favor by remembering them at all.

 
timschochet said:
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, Concluded

Northern Democrats and Whigs were stunned by Douglas's bill. But Free Soilers were not surprised. It was just what they had expected from the "Slave Power." And they were ready with a response to rally the North against this "gross violation of a sacred pledge," this "atrocious plot" to convert free territory into a "dreary region of depotism, inhabited by masters and slaves." These phrases came from the collaborative pens of Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua Giddings, and 3 other Free Soil congressmen who published an "Appeal of the Independent Democrats" in the National Era- the same paper that had serialized Uncle Tom's Cabin.

This Appeal set the keynote for an outpouring of angry speeches, editorials, and sermons across the North. Douglas responded by insisting that the repeal of the ban on slavery north of 36-30 was nothing new. The Compromise of 1850, he declared, had superseded that restriction by allowing popular sovereignity in former Mexican territory north as well as south of that line. This was BS, and everyone knew it. The Compromise of 1850 applied to the Mexican cession, not to the Louisiana Purchase, and no one at the time- including Douglas- had thought otherwise. This was just a rationalization of policy forced on Douglas by southern pressure. Nevertheless, Democratic party discipline and Douglas's parliamentary legerdemain pushed the bill through the Senate in March by a vote of 41 to 17 with only 5 of the 24 free state Democrats joining northern Whigs and Free Soilers in opposition.

Northern Democrats in the House who had to face election in the fall proved more resistant to administration pressure. Nevertheless Alexander Stephens, floor manager of the bill, applied "whip and spur" and drove it to passage on May 22 by a vote of 115 to 104. "I feel as if the Mission of my life was performed," wrote the exultant Stephens. Perhaps so, but only by giving the coup de grace to the intersectional two-party system. Every northern Whig in the two houses had voted against the bill, while 25 out of 34 southern Whigs had voted for it. Of 75 southern Democrats, 72 voted for the measure, while 49 of 108 northern Democrats voted against it. Many of the latter knew that an affirmative vote meant defeat for reelection, while a negative vote meant an end to influence in the party establishment. Only 7 of the northern representatives who voted Aye won reelection, while most who voted Nay left the Democratic party never to return. For northern and southern Whigs the bitter divisions caused a final parting of the ways. "The Whig party has been killed off effectively by that miserable Nebraska business," wrote Truman Smith of Connecticut, who resigned in disgust from the Senate. "We Whigs of the North are unalterably determined never to have even the slightest political correspondence or connection with southern Whigs." That was fine with Southerners. "We will have no party association with Northern Whigs," they declared, "until they shall give unmistakable evidence of repentance of the impulses of a wild fanaticism."

The question now became: who would pick up the pieces of smashed political parties? In the lower South, Democrats would soon sweep most of the remaining shards of Whiggery into their own dustbin. In the upper South, Whigs clung to a precarious existence- under different names- for a few more years. In the North, matters were more complicated.
Again, Douglass was not the guy at the end of the leash doing what he was told. He was making his own political calculations and gaming the situation as best he could for his own political ends. It was pretty clear to everyone in the government that the vote would destroy the Whig party as it pretty much did. In the end, the sectional differences were used to remove opposition to the democrats and the southern block thought that once that was accomplished they would control the party in power, without too much opposition. Douglass knew this and took the lead on the debate to become the leader of the moveent to secure democrat party power bases. The only problem with the whole plan was that Pierce sucked as PResident and party leader and couldn't help out more. But it basically became the party test that Pierce tried to make it, through no important effort of his own - it was Douglass that fought the fight. In the end, the Democratic party became more pure and destroyed its main opposition. They were poised to keep power in the executive and Congress for the next few cycles. Or so they thought. The problem with getting almost everything you want out of politics is that chances are, you really really piss someone off in the process.

 
Northern aggression at its finest. Slavery would have ended on its own insofar as if the south had been allowed to break with the union they would have had to eliminate slavery or else risk having no one to trade with as Europe had banned slavery years earlier.This war was about money, not morality!Carry on.
Keep being wrong....
 
The Birth of the Republican Party, concluded

The campaigns in the North were intense and bitter in 1854, nowhere near more than in Douglas' own state of Illinois. Douglas opened the canvass with a speech on September 1, in Chicago, where a hostile crowd shouted him down for two hours until he strode angrily off the platform and headed for friendlier districts downstate. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln was "aroused...as he had never been before" by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Still calling himself a Whig, Lincoln took the stump on behalf of anti-Nebraska candidates for the legislature, hoping that victory would forge a legislative majority to elect him to the U.S. Senate. Lincoln and Douglas confronted each other on the same platform in speeches at Springfield and Peoria in October. (These are not to be confused with the famous and immortal debates that would take place between these two men 4 years later, which we will get to.) In these addresses Lincoln set forth for the first time the themes that he would carry into the presidency 6 years later.

But before we examine these themes and speeches, I think it's time to take a look at exactly who Abraham Lincoln was, and how he got to this point. Over the course of this draft, I intend to offer biographies of all of the major figures of the Civil War, and I can't think of any better place to start than with Honest Abe. Much of this, or at least some of it, should be familiar to most of you reading this. But we'll do it anyhow.
I know you are getting there, but this was a man with no formal education, who grew up in poverty, who managed to make himself worthhy enough of a small stint in the military where he did exactly nothing but did enjoy loyalty and friendship from his soldiers, who turned a rather amazingly successful law practice into one term in Congress, who became so offended and annoyed by party politics and the policy that Douglas championed that he quit politics, who saw his party, wuch as it was, destroy itself within the psan of 3 years, who wasn't av ery good theatrical public speaker, and who was, frankly, rather ugly and unimpressive save for his height. And he packaged all of that into one of the most dazzingly brilliant campaigns of political growth starting with his head to head challenges to one of the most powerful and captivating public speakers in the country.
 
Once again, we see the South working within the confines of the Constitution to affect policy so long as they get what they want. The story repeats itself so much that sometimes I'm truly amazed that anyone tries to couch the actions of the rebels in terms other then criminal and traitor.I don't think you captured the true essence of Stephen Douglass here, though. He was a tremendous politician. He wasn't simply someone out to make money on land, and then someone to back down to a pwoerful voting block. The man had Clintonesque political skills and more ability and was becoming one of the more powerful men in America. In the nd, I beleive, he finally began to make this deal not for the assumptions here, but becuse he was trying to buy his ticket to the White House in the future and he knew that he was going to need the southern voting block to get there.Franklin Pierce is considered by many to be one of the most ineffective Preisdent's we have ever had. In fact after Pierce and the even-worse Buchanan we see most of the ill fated Presidents as those who served during the time leading up to the Civil War. Men like these two, and Fillmore, and Vna Buren were simply unable to lead in any meaningful fashion. They had the unfortunate fate of being the generation of leaders that followed the founders and were probably doomed to fail - similar to the Washington to Adams transition. But that tail end of the second generation of leaders - that starting with John Quincy and ended with Buchanan - was probably a collection of the most ineffective and weak executives this country has ever had over a long period of time, and save for Jackson and Polk, history usually does these men a favor by remembering them at all.
Your comparison between Douglass and Clinton is very intriguing. On a side note, my best friend throughout my entire life is a descendent of Douglas, and his family makes a big deal out of that. I think you're correct that in summarizing this event I didn't flesh out Douglass's character and attitude. Hopefully that will be rectified a little later when we get to the big debates.Regarding Pierce and Buchanan, their place in history reminds me a little of Baldwin and Chamberlain, the two Prime Ministers who preceded Churchill. It's tough to be the mediocre leader who comes before a great man in a crisis- kind of like being the journeyman QB who starts the year before a Hall of Famer arrives.
 
Abraham Lincoln Part One

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, two farmers, in a one-room log cabin on the 348-acre Sinking Spring Farm, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now part of LaRue County), making him the first president born in the west. Lincoln was not given a middle name. His ancestor Samuel Lincoln had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts from England in the 17th century. His grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln, had moved to Kentucky, where he owned over 5,000 acres, and was ambushed and killed by an Indian raid in 1786.

(The fact that Lincoln was born in Kentucky is one of the great historical ironies in American history, because Jefferson Davis, his adversary during the Civil War, was also born in Kentucky one year earlier. Kentucky was a "border" state during the Civil War, with citizens fighting on both sides. Lincoln's family would move North; Davis's family would move South. There is almost a perfect equilibrium to these facts, and I personally can't think of any situation in history that comes close to matching it.)

Thomas Lincoln was a respected citizen of rural Kentucky. He owned several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm, although he was not wealthy. The family belonged to a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards frowning on alcohol consumption and dancing, and many church members were opposed to slavery. Abraham himself never joined their church, or any other church.

In 1816, the Lincoln family left Kentucky to avoid the expense of fighting for one of their properties in court, and made a new start in Perry County, Indiana (now in Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery", and partly because of difficulties with land deeds in Kentucky. Abraham's father disapproved of slavery on religious grounds and because it was hard to compete economically with farms operated by slaves. Unlike land in the Northwest Territory, Kentucky never had a proper U.S. survey, and farmers often had difficulties proving title to their property.

When Lincoln was 9, his mother, then 34 years old, died of milk sickness. Soon afterwards, his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Lincoln and his stepmother were close; he called her "Mother" for the rest of his life, but he became increasingly distant from his father. Abraham felt his father wasn't a success, and didn't want to be like him. In later years, he would occasionally lend his father money. In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois.

The next year, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Lincoln's formal education consisted of about 18 months of schooling, but he was largely self-educated and an avid reader. He was also skilled with an axe and a talented local wrestler, the latter of which helped give him confidence. Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals, even for food.

Lincoln's first love was Ann Rutledge. He met her when he first moved to New Salem, and by 1835 they had reached a romantic understanding. Rutledge, however, died on August 25, probably of typhoid fever. Earlier, in either 1833 or 1834, he had met Mary Owens, the sister of his friend Elizabeth Abell, when she was visiting from her home in Kentucky. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match proposed by Elizabeth between him and her sister, if Mary ever returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836 and Lincoln courted her for a time; however they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter from Springfield, to which he had moved that April to begin his law practice, suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied, and the courtship was over.

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, from a wealthy slaveholding family based in Lexington, Kentucky. They met in Springfield in December 1839, and were engaged sometime around that Christmas. A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding approached.They later met at a party, and then married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's married sister. In 1844, the couple bought a house on Eighth and Jackson in Springfield, near Lincoln's law office. The Lincolns soon had a budding family, with the birth of son Robert Todd Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois on August 1, 1843, and second son Edward Baker Lincoln on March 10, 1846, also in Springfield.According to a house girl, Abraham "was remarkably fond of children".The Lincolns did not believe in strict rules and tight boundaries when it came to their children.

Robert, however, would be the only one of the Lincolns' children to survive into adulthood. Edward Lincoln died on February 1, 1850 in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis.The Lincolns' grief over this loss was somewhat assuaged by the birth of William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln nearly eleven months later, on December 21. But Willie himself died of a fever at the age of eleven on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during President Lincoln's first term. The Lincolns' fourth son Thomas "Tad" Lincoln was born on April 4, 1853, and, although he outlived his father, died at the age of eighteen on July 16, 1871 in Chicago. Robert Lincoln eventually went on to attend Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College. His (and by extension, his father's) last known lineal descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died December 24, 1985.

The death of the Lincolns' sons had profound effects on both Abraham and Mary. Later in life, Mary Todd Lincoln found herself unable to cope with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and this (in conjunction with what some historians consider to have been pre-existing bipolar disorder ) eventually led Robert Lincoln to involuntarily commit her to a mental health asylum in 1875. Abraham Lincoln himself was contemporaneously described as suffering from "melancholy" throughout his legal and political life, a condition which modern mental health professionals would now typically characterize as clinical depression.
Decent synopsis. Some argue that the marriage to Mary Todd was more calculating then romantic, which was probably true. And you underplay the effect of his sons' deaths on Lincoln. It basically killed him and most of the morbib dreams and fatalistic sense of life that flowed from his pen closer to his death pretty much start at the death of his son.
 
[Decent synopsis. Some argue that the marriage to Mary Todd was more calculating then romantic, which was probably true. And you underplay the effect of his sons' deaths on Lincoln. It basically killed him and most of the morbib dreams and fatalistic sense of life that flowed from his pen closer to his death pretty much start at the death of his son.
I didn't write the synopsis, obviously, so I can't take credit. I was almost going to edit out the part about Lincoln's son's death, because much much later in this thread there should be a lot more detail about this, and his reaction to it.
 
Abraham Lincoln Part Two

Lincoln began his political career in March 1832 at age 23 when he announced his candidacy for the Illinois General Assembly. He made the decision based on self-confidence; he felt himself equal to any man. He was esteemed by the residents of New Salem, but he didn't have an education, powerful friends, or money. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. Before the election he served as a captain in a company of the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. Lincoln returned from the militia after a few months and was able to campaign throughout the county before the August 6 election. At 6 feet 4 inches, he was tall and "strong enough to intimidate any rival." At his first political speech, he grabbed a man accosting a supporter by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and threw him. When the votes were counted, Lincoln finished eighth out of thirteen candidates (only the top four were elected), but he did manage to secure 277 out of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.

In 1834, he won an election to the state legislature. He was labeled a Whig, but ran a bipartisan campaign. He then decided to become a lawyer, and began teaching himself law by reading Commentaries on the Laws of England. Admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, that April, and began to practice law with John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin, who let Lincoln have the run of his law library while studying to be a lawyer.With a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments, Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer. In 1841, Lincoln entered law practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought "a studious young man". He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a representative from Sangamon County, affiliated with the Whig party. In 1837, he and another legislator declared that slavery was "founded on both injustice and bad policy", the first time he had publicly opposed slavery. In the 1835–1836 legislative session he'd voted to restrict suffrage to whites only. He would later say that he had been against slavery since he was a boy, but being labelled an abolitionist was "political suicide" in Sangamon County in those years, and so he chose his words carefully when discussing the issue publicly. Lincoln was a Whig, and since the early 1830s had strongly admired the policies and leadership of Henry Clay."I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig" he professed to friends in 1861.The party favored economic expansion such as improving roads and increasing trade.
There is a story that Lincolnw as basically becomming one of the more popular and successful lawyer's in the area. One day in court he had to give closing arguments on a case. He did - I forget the facts and they really aren't important - and the jury agreed with him and his client won. Later that afternoon he started a new trial for a different client but the same judge was sitting. This client had the exact opposite case as his first client - in fact this second case could have been the adversary fro the first case on almost every point it was so close. The law, beyond the facts, was identical, and when Lincoln rose to give him opening statement he spoke in direct oppostion the very argument he made earlier in the day that won that trial. After he was done the judge looked at him and said something to effect of, "How can you argue that when just this morning you argued the exact opposite for your client?" And Lincoln's reply is basically one of the foundation "jokes" of the legal profession."Your Honor, this morning I was wrong, and now I am correct."

 
Some argue that the marriage to Mary Todd was more calculating then romantic, which was probably true.
This touches on two distinct visions of Lincoln that we seem to get from historians and biographers: 1. Lincoln the romantic, who was politically reluctant, who didn't want the grave responsibility but had it thrust upon him, who was a statesman but not a politician. We can almost call this the "Sandburg" Lincoln, because Carl Sandburg's biography is the one that seemed to start this, from what I have been able to gather. This is also the Lincoln I've seen described in movies and television, and also in the short bios that have appeared in my daughters' elementary school.

2. Lincoln the politically ambitious, who shaped his later life with a goal of seeking power, as most politicians do, who was calculated and wanted to be president, and whose "reticence" was merely a political ruse. This is the Lincoln that Shelby Foote describes in his work, and I have read it elsewhere as well.

I have yet to read Team of Rivals, so I don't know how he is presented there...

 
Those are the basic facts of Abraham Lincoln leading up to his 1854 speeches, which I will get to. Of course there are all sorts of interesting trivial facts about the man. I will answer a few of them, and then if anyone wants to add their own thoughts, please do so.

Was Abraham Lincoln religious?

This question comes up every once in a while. Lincoln frequently referenced God and quoted the Bible, yet never formally joined any church. He was private about his beliefs and respected the beliefs of others. Since his assassination, many attempts have been made to define his beliefs as either religious or secular. He was said to be an admirer of the deist author Thomas Paine, and it has been reported that he wrote a manuscript essay challenging orthodox Christianity modeled on Paine's book The Age of Reason, which a friend burned to protect him from ridicule. According to biographer Rev. William Barton, Lincoln likely had written an essay something of this character, but it was not likely that it was burned in such a manner.While Lincoln never joined any church, there is disagreement about whether he experienced a conversion to Christianity later in life, particularly during his tenure as president. His close personal friend, bodyguard, and biographer Ward Hill Lamon said:

Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way change his religious ideas, opinions or beliefs, from the time he left Springfield till the day of his death. I do not know just what they were, never having heard him explain them in detail, but I am very sure he gave no outward indications of his mind having undergone any change in that regard while here.

However another close individual, Lincoln's wife and widow, wrote exactly the opposite opinion of her husband's faith:

As my husband was known to be the most loving and devoted husband & father we will allow these falsehoods a place where they deserve. We all — the whole world have been greatly shocked — at the fearful ideas — Herndon — has advanced regarding Mr. Lincoln's religious views. You, who knew him so well & held so many conversations with him, as far back as twenty years since, know what they were. A man, who never took the name of the Maker in vain, who always read his Bible diligently, who never failed to rely on God's promises & looked upon Him for protection, surely such a man as this, could not have been a disbeliever, or any other than what he was, a true Christian gentleman. No one, but such a man as Herndon could venture — to suggest such an idea. From the time of the death of our little Edward, I believe my husband's heart was directed towards religion & as time passed on - when Mr. Lincoln became elevated to Office - with the care of a great Nation, upon his shoulders - when devastating war was upon us then indeed to my knowledge - did his great heart go up daily, hourly, in prayer to God - for his sustaining power. When too - the overwhelming sorrow came upon us, our beautiful bright angelic boy, Willie was called away from us, to his Heavenly Home, with God's chastising hand upon us - he turned his heart to Christ.

So who knows? I suspect given the time in which he lived and the nature of the man, it would be unlikely that Lincoln was not a believer in Christianity, but I have no more way of knowing this than anyone else.
I think it's pretty safe to say that if you read about him and review his writings and speeches he gives more then political lip service to Christian faith. He most likely believed in God and was even trying to live a godly life as best he knew it, but he wasn't an outwardly practicing Christian.
How did Lincoln feel about Blacks?

This really depends on who you ask. Certain African American scholars, (for instance Obama's buddy Professor Henry Gates) have made a career asserting that Lincoln was a racist who cared nothing about Black people or the fact that they were slaves. Ironically enough, some Southern revisionist historians tend to agree with this assessment. On the other hand, mainstream historians suggest the opposite: that Lincoln, though a man of his times, (and therefore racist by default) was in fact the great liberator that he is romantically considered.

I won't get too deeply into this issue right now because we're going to be exploring it as part of the narrative. In the narrative I will be following the mainstream interpretations of Lincoln's actions because that is the source material I have chosen to work with. However, where I am made aware of a contradiction or disagreement that has been made by one of the revisionist historians, I will try to include it.
He was neither extreme. Like most "northerners" he probably didn't approve of the practice most of his life especially considering it affected the income his family had when he was younger, but as a politician and leader it was a question best answered as getting the problem away from the coutnry by whatever means necessary. He was a vocal supporter, for a long time, of removing all slaves from the continent and placing them in another land. As times changed and that became economically and logistically impossible he backed away from that stance. He was very clear about the main goal in the end - the preservation of the Union at almost all costs. Slavery, if it had to be sacrificied as a policy to save the Union, well, then so be it.
 
Regarding Pierce and Buchanan, their place in history reminds me a little of Baldwin and Chamberlain, the two Prime Ministers who preceded Churchill. It's tough to be the mediocre leader who comes before a great man in a crisis- kind of like being the journeyman QB who starts the year before a Hall of Famer arrives.
They don't look bad simply because Abraham Lincoln followed them - they were bad at the moment in their own history. Few people of the time regarding either man as a great leader or someone with a vision that should be followed. It's probable that they weren't even the best of a bad group of candidates, like some could claim. They were simply weak party men with no true power or ability. The fact that Lincoln followed them does showcase just how bad they were, but the events of their 8 years in power shine a big enough light on their failures that we would see them anyway.I mean, for all the historical reviews and academic papers written on the subject, you can really sum up Buchanan's response to impending Civil War fairly simply. He sat in the corner covered his ears closed his eyes and hoped the whole thing would go away because he couldn't see it or hear it.
 
Some argue that the marriage to Mary Todd was more calculating then romantic, which was probably true.
This touches on two distinct visions of Lincoln that we seem to get from historians and biographers: 1. Lincoln the romantic, who was politically reluctant, who didn't want the grave responsibility but had it thrust upon him, who was a statesman but not a politician. We can almost call this the "Sandburg" Lincoln, because Carl Sandburg's biography is the one that seemed to start this, from what I have been able to gather. This is also the Lincoln I've seen described in movies and television, and also in the short bios that have appeared in my daughters' elementary school.

2. Lincoln the politically ambitious, who shaped his later life with a goal of seeking power, as most politicians do, who was calculated and wanted to be president, and whose "reticence" was merely a political ruse. This is the Lincoln that Shelby Foote describes in his work, and I have read it elsewhere as well.

I have yet to read Team of Rivals, so I don't know how he is presented there...
I don't know if you can give him one label. He was really so much more then any one label attributed to him. I think it's one of the reasons I find him so fascinating and improtant to our history. You can't lock him in one box without doing a severe injustice to a lot of other facts and circumstances. And that isn't to say that he is impossible to define like Jefferson, but that he was simply more then the sum of his parts. In terms of love, however, it's fairly clear in much of the bio's that his true love in life died before they were married. That isn't to say that he didn't love Mary Todd. There is no sense that he didn't. But it wasn't a deeply romantic love that you could write a love story about. And, yes, it did help that she had some money and prestige in her background for his ambitions. You can't say he wasn't ambitious.

 
Insomniac said:
BobbyLayne said:
I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that view. The South's economy was built on slavery and the people in power were almost all part of the slave owner aristocracy. Can you think of any ruling group in history that decided to voluntarily destroy what they considered the source of their wealth and power?
Lincoln thought Slavery would die out in the South in about the 1950s. He was fine with that, til later in the war.
Source?
Lincoln also predicted Jerry Lee Lewis and big fins on cars
 
BobbyLayne said:
The underlying issue was slavery, and it was the root cause of the war.
Just a question I have always had - everyone says slavery was THE cause of the war. Obviously it was a major issue and the hot one at the time of the war. But wasn't THE issue really the south's belief that the states had the right to do what they wished? You had SC threatening secession in Jackson's presidency over taxation. So was it really going to war over slavery or going to war over the right of the state to be its own sovereign (and to have slavery if it wished)?edit because I can't spell
not sure of the book I saw it in but IIRC many simply joined by peer pressure. Once there was a north/south army and all, the men not a part of it didn't want to be thought of as the ones that didn't fight for their country or the only ones in their area not fighting etc. Once they started wrestling up the last little bit of recruits, that little last bit would be as high as 20-30% of the armies.
I'm not sure its a binary issue; you can't really say it was THE issue or THE one and only root cause, but it seems silly to mask it in anything else like states rights. Free state or slave state drove a lot of political issues; but most Americans just want to be left alone, free to live their own lives. When the Army of Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania in 1863, they were surprised at how indifferent the locals were. War had not, up until then, touched their lives, and they didn't much care one way or another - they just want the rebels and the yanks to both leave, the sooner the better.These sectional differences simmered and boiled for more than 80 years. It is, by definition, a complex answer to the question of what caused the civil war. Personally, I think it was largely that over time, extreme positions by the abolitionists and the fire-eaters pulled the country into something that should have been avoided.I believe slavery would have died of its own volition within 25 years. We'll never know if that is true or not.
It might have been, who knows. I tend to doubt it simply because of what it was doing to the politics of the time. The country was growing and with it it needed to incorporate more terrirtories and states. In order to accomplish that goal, the slavery issue continued to be the driving force of the debate. It got to the point in 1858 where nothing or almost nothing could get accomplished in the federal government given the sectional problems. Then you had on top of that slave owners and bounty hunters basically fighting a de facto war in some communities on the boarders and in the north and even the criminal justice system was suffering.Had the slave states continued to act within the confines of the Constitution, after Lincoln was inaugurated they probably would have been able to work out a short term deal with him and keep the fights in policy instead of battlefields. The whole of the executive mansion changes if there is no civil war in 1860 as the following Presidents all owed their ascension to that war - Johnson, Grant, Rutherford Hayes, Garfield, Arthur. Cleveland paid someone to serve for him but only rose to power because of the politics of post-Civil War. Basically from 1860- turn of the century its all up in the air. Lincoln may have gone the way of President's before him and only served one term as the continued sectional strife leads to less and less getting actually accomplished. By basically being the party in power by raising the issue of secession and war, the southern democrats maintain some unconventional control over national policy and they weren't about to make slavery illegal any time soon - not while they were in power and their base was what it was.By the turn of the century if the country was still basically broken in half in spirit but not formality, its hard to guage the world at that point. The 20th century was singularly important to just about every part of hte world, unlike many other centuries or periods of extreme historical significance. I doubt very much that the allies in WWI have the same America backing them up, so who knows what happens then. The national monetary policy that led to the panic of 1903 and eventually the creation of the Federal Reserve was, due in large part, to agrarian issues in the south and west. In a Congress still sectionally divided, do we get the same laws? Or is a new national banking and monetary plan finally created as a deal to end slavery? Or is that the policy that finally drives the wedge to conflict? If there is no Federal Reserve then there may not be a growing progressive and socialist movement, certainly not in the south in any way, that gives rise to the 16th and or 17th Amendments. In fact, the south would probably fight the 17th Amendment given its potential to force an even deeped wedge into political power of Senators serving in an already politically stormy Senate.Without those policies, or something different, there might not be a depression in 1929. There might not be the policies against Germany that gave rise to the Reich and Hitler. The whole of the 20th century would simply be very very different. Slavery as a policy might not have dies until the middle of the 20th century for good. The country looks far far different then it does today and I'm guessing the world does as well. Do we have the leg to stand on to question colonialism as we did following WWII if 1/2 of our country is basically a territorial colony in practice? Does the inability to get any major policy through the Congress stall our ability to grow after 1897?I would hope slavery would have died eventually. But who knows. What we do know is that in the 18th century when we were blessed to have what has to be considered the finest collection of political leaders ever assembled by one nation all working together for a common goal of creating a country that survives its revolution, even those great minds knew that this was an issue that could topple all of their grandest plans. And they pushed it off on the next generation, who hung on as long as they could before finally giving in to the fire that could have consumed everyone 80 years earlier. If they couldn't do it, what makes us think anyone could have save war?
 
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The Birth of the Republican Party, concluded

The campaigns in the North were intense and bitter in 1854, nowhere near more than in Douglas' own state of Illinois. Douglas opened the canvass with a speech on September 1, in Chicago, where a hostile crowd shouted him down for two hours until he strode angrily off the platform and headed for friendlier districts downstate. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln was "aroused...as he had never been before" by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Still calling himself a Whig, Lincoln took the stump on behalf of anti-Nebraska candidates for the legislature, hoping that victory would forge a legislative majority to elect him to the U.S. Senate. Lincoln and Douglas confronted each other on the same platform in speeches at Springfield and Peoria in October.
Here are some parts of Lincoln's Peoria speech that many consider the first step on the ladder to the White House.

I wish further to say, that I do not propose to question the patriotism, or to assail the motives of any man, or class of men; but rather to strictly confine myself to the naked merits of the question.

Mr. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and otherwise a chief actor in the revolution; then a delegate in Congress; afterwards twice President; who was, is, and perhaps will continue to be, the most distinguished politician of our history; a Virginian by birth and continued residence, and withal, a slave-holder; conceived the idea of taking that occasion, to prevent slavery ever going into the north-western territory. He prevailed on the Virginia Legislature to adopt his views, and to cede the territory, making the prohibition of slavery therein, a condition of the deed. Congress accepted the cession, with the condition; and in the first Ordinance (which the acts of Congress were then called) for the government of the territory, provided that slavery should never be permitted therein. This is the famed ordinance of '87 so often spoken of. Thenceforward, for sixty-one years, and until in 1848, the last scrap of this territory came into the Union as the State o f Wisconsin, all parties acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance. It is now what Jefferson foresaw and intended—the happy home of teeming millions of free, white, prosperous people, and no slave amongst them.

This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest .

When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,—to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible.

But, however this may be, we know the opening of new countries to slavery, tends to the perpetuation of the institution, and so does KEEP men in slavery who otherwise would be free. This result we do not FEEL like favoring, and we are under no legal obligation to suppress our feelings in this respect.

And yet again; there are in the United States and territories, including the District of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At $500 per head they are worth over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes this vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves, and they would be slaves now, but for SOMETHING which has operated on their white owners, inducing them, at vast pecuniary sacrifices, to liberate them. What is that SOMETHING? Is there any mistaking it? In all these cases it is your sense of justice, and human sympathy, continually telling you, that the poor negro has some natural right to himself—that those who deny it, and make mere merchandise of him, deserve kickings, contempt and death.

What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle—the sheet anchor of American republicanism. Our Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."

Let it not be said I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the whites and blacks. I have already said the contrary. I am not now combating the argument of NECESSITY, arising from the fact that the blacks are already amongst us; but I am combating what is set up as MORAL argument for allowing them to be taken where they have never yet been—arguing against the EXTENSION of a bad thing, which where it already exists, we must of necessity, manage as we best can.

Another important objection to this application of the right of self-government, is that it enables the first FEW, to deprive the succeeding MANY, of a free exercise of the right of self-government. The first few may get slavery IN, and the subsequent many cannot easily get it OUT. How common is the remark now in the slave States—"If we were only clear of our slaves, how much better it would be for us." They are actually deprived of the privilege of governing themselves as they would, by the action of a very few, in the beginning. The same thing was true of the whole nation at the time our constitution was formed.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature—opposition to it, is [in?] his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri compromise—repeal all compromises—repeal the declaration of independence—repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still wi ll be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

Let no one be deceived. The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit of Nebraska, are utter antagonisms; and the former is being rapidly displaced by the latter.

Already the liberal party throughout the world, express the apprehension "that the one retrograde institution in America, is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw." This is not the taunt of enemies, but thewarning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it—to despise it? Is there no danger to liberty itself, in discarding the earliest practice, and first precept of our ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware, lest we "cancel and tear to pieces" even the white man's charter of freedom.

Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right," back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of "necessity." Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.

 
Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right," back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of "necessity." Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.
If you read enough Lincoln, in this speech - this part, which is the ending salvo against the arguments of Senator Douglass - you see one of the very first political stances that Lincoln takes which forms the basis of his Gettysburgh Address. He was getting there with his call to repudiate the "spirit of Nebraska" as an attack on the "spirit of 76" (meaning 1776) and if you trace the origins of the Gettysburgh Address, you see it here. And not just the ideas, but the speech patterns as well. You will see it again in his Cooper Union and inaugural speechs. The tact of the argument is legal, but poetic. It recalls past glory days that no listener will ascribe to bad times, only good. It calls for the remembrance of an honor we all accept that we had in the founding (or at least his listeners did when he spoke).Even right down to the method. The most important and powerful portion of the Gettysburgh Address is the final call - "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. " It's Lincoln's trinity speech method - three points to hit, and sometimes three smaller points in the three bigger points. His "Let us repurify.... let us turn/return..... let us re-adopt" method in Peoria is a start. He perfects this in Gettysburgh.
 
Personally I think that a good deal of the lingering sectional resentment came not from having lost the war, but the harsh and humiliating conditions in the south during reconstruction. You could even argue that it was the post-war suppression of southern whites that set back race relations decades. But staying on point, I do think that when we look around the globe and see that country after country already had or would soon make slavery illegal, I think it is inevitable that slavery in the U.S. would have ended. My guess (and its nothing more than that) is it was already on its last legs.
This is true. The Radical Republicans wanted to punish the south but Lincoln never would have let them. The far greater chances were that Lincoln would have had the southern states incorporate back into the flow with little retribution. Andrew Johnson was way too weak to stand up to the radicals and not only did they try to run over him, which they really did, but they impeached him because of it. By the time Grant got into office the stage was set for what was basically de facto slavery for another decade or two before we just fell into what became harsh racist policies designed to legalize the bad treatment of blacks at the hands of whites - which didn't stop effectively under the law until Nixon was President, and probably hasn't stopped in practice in some areas through today, even with a black man in the very office that Lincoln occupied.
 
Yankee23fan has saved me some time here by pasting and analyzing Lincoln's 1854 speech. Therefore I am going to continue to hit the "highlights" in the narrative leading up to 1860. (Beginning in 1860, and through 1865, we'll be covering as much as we can in full detail.)

Next up: Bleeding Kansas!

 
Yankee23fan has saved me some time here by pasting and analyzing Lincoln's 1854 speech. Therefore I am going to continue to hit the "highlights" in the narrative leading up to 1860. (Beginning in 1860, and through 1865, we'll be covering as much as we can in full detail.)Next up: Bleeding Kansas!
Ah, when the American language was given new evil words.... like Lecompton. Ohhhh. Another fun point. It's estimated that about 56 people died in the Bleeding Kansas proxy war - same number who signed the Declaration of Independence. Bleeding Kansas was basically over by 1858. The Civil War was over in 1865, a period of 7 years. From the Declaration to Independence 1776 - 1782 (with the Treaty in 1783) a period of roughly 7 years. Maybe the rebels were on to something invoking the Declaration of Independence.
 
I don't have time to look at this until tonight, but would someone PM Joe B and have him lock Yankee23Fan's account for about 4-5 hours (and preferrably before he posts more)?

TIA

 
I don't have time to look at this until tonight, but would someone PM Joe B and have him lock Yankee23Fan's account for about 4-5 hours (and preferrably before he posts more)?

TIA
:rolleyes:
I think he's referring to your amount of posting.We all knew that once you stumbled onto this thread you would have a few things to add.
Well, no one else was doing anything. This poor thread hit page 3 at one point. That just ain't right.
 
I don't have time to look at this until tonight, but would someone PM Joe B and have him lock Yankee23Fan's account for about 4-5 hours (and preferrably before he posts more)?

TIA
:yucky:
I think he's referring to your amount of posting.We all knew that once you stumbled onto this thread you would have a few things to add.
Well, no one else was doing anything. This poor thread hit page 3 at one point. That just ain't right.
I don't mind it, love the insight :unsure:
 
I don't have time to look at this until tonight, but would someone PM Joe B and have him lock Yankee23Fan's account for about 4-5 hours (and preferrably before he posts more)?

TIA
:thumbup:
I think he's referring to your amount of posting.We all knew that once you stumbled onto this thread you would have a few things to add.
Well, no one else was doing anything. This poor thread hit page 3 at one point. That just ain't right.
My guess is, since he can't read it until he gets home, he doesn't want to be way behind and wants to join in the discussion so wants you to wait. lol
 
My guess is, since he can't read it until he gets home, he doesn't want to be way behind and wants to join in the discussion so wants you to wait. lol
Ok, so I'll hold off on my post where I argue that the leaders of the southern democratic power bloc used the Bloody Kansas proxy war as a test to see northern resolve for future wider conflict and in order to guage the persistence of the southern polity in holding forth such a fight if necessary, and that the results and plan show the long term plan of the rebels; and on the northern side Horace Greeley enflamed the passions slightly more then they needed to be to his own monetary ends knowing that it would devolve the situation more then it needed to be; and finally that PResident Buchanan was the ultimate moron in that office.
 
I don't have time to look at this until tonight, but would someone PM Joe B and have him lock Yankee23Fan's account for about 4-5 hours (and preferrably before he posts more)?

TIA
:shrug:
I think he's referring to your amount of posting.We all knew that once you stumbled onto this thread you would have a few things to add.
:lmao: Yeah, for a barrister he's a little slow on the uptake, eh?

J/K (on both counts) Yankee...I actually don't mind you doing all the heavy lifting for next few figurative years. I'll pitch in with some meatier efforts once P.G.T.B. starts bombarding Anderson.

 
Personally I think that a good deal of the lingering sectional resentment came not from having lost the war, but the harsh and humiliating conditions in the south during reconstruction. You could even argue that it was the post-war suppression of southern whites that set back race relations decades. But staying on point, I do think that when we look around the globe and see that country after country already had or would soon make slavery illegal, I think it is inevitable that slavery in the U.S. would have ended. My guess (and its nothing more than that) is it was already on its last legs.
This is true. The Radical Republicans wanted to punish the south but Lincoln never would have let them. The far greater chances were that Lincoln would have had the southern states incorporate back into the flow with little retribution. Andrew Johnson was way too weak to stand up to the radicals and not only did they try to run over him, which they really did, but they impeached him because of it. By the time Grant got into office the stage was set for what was basically de facto slavery for another decade or two before we just fell into what became harsh racist policies designed to legalize the bad treatment of blacks at the hands of whites - which didn't stop effectively under the law until Nixon was President, and probably hasn't stopped in practice in some areas through today, even with a black man in the very office that Lincoln occupied.
So it is true when he says it and not when I say it.Friggin' Yankees
 

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