3 ms·

Secession in the case of the American South was not a clear-cut case of everyone in a region wanting to live in their own country. The owners of the large slave

Secession in the case of the American South was not a clear-cut case of everyone in a region wanting to live in their own country. The owners of the large slave-based plantations wanted to secede, and since they were the wealthy political elites, they made it happen. However, poorer white farmers who owned no slaves were either ambivalent about secession or outright pro-Union, and of course the black slave population weren't enthusiastic about the Confederate elites' aims. So, Lincoln was advocating for the large Southern population that did not want to divide the Union, not quashing regional democratic aspirations.

jariel 6y ago
So that's a good point but - "was not a clear-cut case of everyone in a region wanting to live in their own country" Neither was the American revolution in the first place. Where was the referendum? What would have been the results? Would the secessionists even have won? Lincoln maybe didn't live in a time where he had a lot of historical examples to follow, fair enough, but the argument that 'some didn't want to separate' doesn't quite cut it fully because that's pretty much a pervasive context.