Lincoln -- Among Our Greatest Presidents? Based on some afternoon reading and thinking. Its amazing how myths are born and survive.
1) The Civil war produced huge casualities The war produced more than 970,000 casualties (3% of the population), including approximately 620,000 soldier deaths two-thirds by disease. USA Killed in action: 110,000 Total dead: 360,000 Wounded: 275,200 CSA Killed in action: 93,000 Total dead: 258,000 Wounded: 137,000+ Total Killed in action: 203,000 Total dead: 618,000 Wounded: 412,000+ 2) Reconstruction Set Race Relations Back by Many Years The initial flurry of Reconstruction civil rights measures was eroded and converted into laws that expanded racial segregation and discrimination throughout Southern institutions and everyday life. In exchange for its acceptance of reintegration into the Union, the South (along with the rest of the country) was allowed to reestablish a segregated, race-discriminatory society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction 3) The Civil War was Not about the Abolition of Slavery Letter to Horace Greeley President Abraham Lincoln Executive Mansion Washington, August 22, 1862 Hon. Horace Greeley: Dear Sir. I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forebear, I forebear because I do not believe it would save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours, A. Lincoln. 4) Slavery had almost reached its outer limits of growth by 1860, so war was unnecessary to stop further growth. The institution was already on the road to ultimate extinction, (see #5).4) Only Seven percent of slaveholders owned roughly three-quarters of the slave population. Ramsdell, Charles W. "The Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 16 (Sept. 1929), 151-71, in JSTOR says slavery had almost reached its outer limits of growth by 1860, so war was unnecessary to stop further growth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War The plantation system, in effect, determined the structure of Southern society. By 1850, there may have been fewer than 350,000 slaveholders in a total free population of about six million--representing approximately 36% of white households. There was sufficient social mobility in free southern society that an even larger proportion of free southerners might expect at some point to own slaves. However, the proportion of slaveowning households would decline, by 1860, to approximately 25%, and the distribution of slave ownership was highly concentrated within a small minority of slaveowners that owned the majority of slaves. Perhaps seven percent of slaveholders owned roughly three-quarters of the slave population. This plantation-owning elite, known as "slave magnates," was small enough as to be comparable to the millionaires of the following century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War 5) Succession Could have Occurred Peacefully or the war could have been averted by skillful and responsible leaders. One possible "compromise" was peaceful secession agreed to by the United States, which was seriously discussed in late 1860and supported by many abolitionistsbut was rejected by James Buchanan's conservative Democrats as well as the Republican leadership. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War But the idea of the war as avoidable did not gain ground among historians until the 1920s, when the "revisionists" began to offer new accounts of the prologue to the conflict. Revisionist historians, such as James G. Randall and Avery Craven saw in the social and economic systems of the South no differences so fundamental as to require a war. Randall blamed the ineptitude of a "blundering generation" of leaders. He also saw slavery as essentially a benign institution, crumbling in the presence of nineteenth century tendencies. Craven, the other leading revisionist, placed more emphasis on the issue of slavery than Randall, but argued roughly the same points. In The Coming of the Civil War (1942), Craven argued that slave laborers were not much worse off than Northern workers, that the institution was already on the road to ultimate extinction, and that the war could have been averted by skillful and responsible leaders in the tradition of the great Congressional statesmen Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Two of the most important figures in US politics in the first half of the 19th century, Clay and Webster, arguably in contrast to the 1850s generation of leaders, shared a predisposition to compromises marked by a passionate patriotic devotion to the Union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War Needless War School * Craven, Avery, The Repressible Conflict, 1830-61 (1939) o The Coming of the Civil War (1942) o , "The Coming of the War Between the States," Journal of Southern History 2 (August 1936): 30-63; in JSTOR * Donald, David. "An Excess of Democracy: The Civil War and the Social Process" in David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era, 2d ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 209-35. * Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s. (1978) emphasis on political parties and voters * Randall, James G. "A Blundering Generation," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27 (June 1940): 3-28 in JSTOR * James G. Randall. The Civil War and Reconstruction. (1937), survey and statement of "needless war" interpretation * Pressly, Thomas J. "The Repressible Conflict," chapter 7 of Americans Interpret Their Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954). * Ramsdell, Charles W. "The Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 16 (Sept. 1929), 151-71, in JSTOR says slavery had almost reached its outer limits of growth by 1860, so war was unnecessary to stop further growth. online version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
