--- Bryon Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I had thought that most European sympathies lay with > the > North, given European distaste for slavery, and that > the > North did actually get some European aid? What > nation(s) > considered intervening on the South's side?
The sympathies of European _publics_ were largely with the North, but the sympathies of European governments much less so. They were (dimly) aware of the fact that the United States was a steadily strengthening colossus with the potential to eventually overshadow them all - and they were ready and willing to do something about it. Britain and France both proposed intervening on the South's side, and both came very close to doing so. Britain and the US, in fact, almost went to war over the American capture of Mason and Slidell (two Confederate commissioners sent to Britain to try to gain recognition) from a British ship - Lincoln had the wisdom to back down in that confrontation, against the wishes of the American public and against the advice of Seward, his Secretary of State and the second most powerful man in the Republican Party. Earlier in the war Britain and France had proposed a ceasefire followed by arbitration, which would equally have certainly ended in Southern independence. It was the Lincoln Administration's skillful handling of popular sympathy for the North, combined with its flexibility and ability to use Russia to balance against Britain and France, that kept the European powers at bay. > > Why would a Democrat victory have ensured Southern > victory? Were the Democrats that pro-secession that > they would have ended the war and let the > Confederacy go? Not necessarily pro-secession, but much less active in promoting the war and probably much more likely to accept a negotiated settlement. They were, across-the board, quite opposed to the abolition of slavery, which added to the matter. > Was the public that indifferent to keeping the Union > together? Not at all. But it is impossible for us, in the modern context, to imagine a war like the American Civil War. No Western power had fought a conflict that devastating since 1815, and the United States has never come close, before or since. Remember, the North lost thousands of men in a few _hours_ at Cold Harbor, and that was just one battle. After years of such slaughter - battle after battle after battle, with (for long periods) little sign of victory, and often repeated defeats, one after the other, I think that only a Lincoln could have held the course and convinced the American public to keep fighting. > > Thinking about Dan's what-ifs, here's a different > scenario: > What if Lincoln *hadn't* been elected, but a > *Democrat* had been? > IIRC, it was Lincoln's election (and know > anti-slavery stance) that > brought the tensions to a head, rather than any > explicit acts Lincoln > did to provoke the secession. I guess also along > those lines, would > a different Republican with perhaps a less > anti-slavery platform > have triggered the war? Any Republican would have triggered the war, definitely. Lincoln was (purposefully and with political calculation in mind - God knows what he actually believed) about as "moderate" on that issue as it was possible for a Republican to get. If a Democrat had been, would the Civil War have happened? Well, it wouldn't have happened in 1860. But in that case you have two issues: 1. As Lincoln himself said, that would have been the end of democracy in any meaningful sense. It would have been one region of the country holding the nation hostage, threatening violence if an election did not go its way. What sort of democracy is that? 2. _Eventually_ a Republican would have been elected, or an anti-slavery Democrat. The slavery issue would have been decided eventually, one way or the other. Which gets to your point below: > In other words, was the Civil War inevitable? > Certainly, even without > Lincoln, slavery would have had to end in the US at > some point - Would > it have been possible for this country to eventually > outlaw slavery, > without the war? > > -bryon I think the answer to that question depends on _when_. Now, btw, we're getting very firmly into "my opinion", as opposed to historical consensus. I think that as late as 1820 or so, yes, we could have resolved the issue without war. Around about then (I don't remember the exact date) there was a vote in the Virginia Legislature on the abolition of slavery that was actually pretty close. If Virginia had voted to abolish, then I think that the rest of the South would eventually have followed. But it didn't, and over time the South was overtaken by "pro-slavery" ideology, which is exactly what it sounds like - the belief not (as the Founders had it) that slavery was an evil that we were stuck with, but a positive good that had to be defended at all costs. By the time of the Civil War, even moderates like Alexander Stephens (the Confederate Vice President) were captured by that ideology (list veterans may recall my post of an extended quote by Stephens about the "founding truth" of the Confederacy being black inferiority). After that vote - it's hard to pick a date, but some time after that vote - I think that war was inevitable. I just can't see any way that the situation could have been peacefully resolved, because there was nothing that both sides would have been willing to accept. The South (in my opinion) would have settled for no less than the absolute censorship of any anti-slavery views expressed anywhere in America (something that was already the case in the South) and quite possibly the extension of slavery over the whole country (see Dred Scott). The North would never accept either of those. What other way save war was there to resolve it? ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
