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It's hard to read an article on history when the first paragraph has a glaring falsehood: >Most historians, though, acknowledge that the war’s most ambitious a

by ancap 12y ago

It's hard to read an article on history when the first paragraph has a glaring falsehood: >Most historians, though, acknowledge that the war’s most ambitious aim—full equality for black citizens Quote from Lincoln: >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 forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

mikeash 12y ago
The war involved a lot of people on both sides, and it's reasonable to think of a lot of them as contributing aims. It's reasonable to say that full equality for black citizens was an aim of the war even if it wasn't an aim of Lincoln. After all, it's not like he started it singlehandedly.
- ancap 12y ago
  >It's reasonable to say that full equality for black citizens was an aim of the war even if it wasn't an aim of Lincoln I find it very hard to believe that more than a few people in the entire country had any such concept of "full equality for black citizens", let alone for it to be an aim of he war. As it was, there wasn't even a such thing as a black citizen in that day. >After all, it's not like he started it singlehandedly. If Lincoln did not want the war it would not have happened.
  - ArkyBeagle 12y ago
    The secession of South Carolina was a reaction only to Lincoln being elected, not to anything he'd done. Lincoln was elected in November; South Carolina seceeded in December. Inaugurations were done then in March. Sumter happened in April.
    - ancap 12y ago
      Secession is not an act of war, neither did it require a war in response. Sumter, was, in effect, a non event where no humans were killed. Lincoln's reaction to Sumter, however, led to the death of nearly a million people.
      - ArkyBeagle 12y ago
        I see two "axioms" in play - "was secession a legitimate state's right, yes or no?". As tests go, this one was pretty conclusive. The South had maybe two stratagems that produced even a draw; they did ( or could ) not choose either. I think of what we think of as "civilization" as a set of filters on humanity's basic prehistoric predilection for blood sacrifice. Sometimes these filters break down...
jordanb 12y ago
Lincoln's relationship with slavery "evolved" during the war. In 1860 the Republican party platform promised that they were only opposed to the expansion of slavery, they did not propose to end it. In the early stages of the war Lincoln reiterated his modest goals with respect to slavery in order to try to keep slave states in the union (this partially worked) and to broker a quick end to the rebellion. With the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln made his cause explicitly anti-slavery, and in the 1864 election the Republican platform explicitly included the complete abolition of slavery. For the rebels, the preservation of slavery was always the primary cause for the rebellion. The fact that a Republican could become president -- even one on a limited platform -- was proof enough to them that slavery was not safe from political reform as long as they remained in the union. For a brilliant account of the relationship between slavery and rebellion I recommend The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine: http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Dixie-Revolution-Transformed/dp/0812978722/ http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Dixie-Revolution-Transforme...
- ancap 12y ago
  >In 1860 the Republican party platform promised that they were only opposed to the expansion of slavery, they did not propose to end it. In the early stages of the war Lincoln reiterated his modest goals with respect to slavery in order to try to keep slave states in the union (this partially worked) and to broker a quick end to the rebellion. As noted in my reply above. Early in his presidency, Lincoln promoted a constitutional amendment which would have permanently protected the institution of slavery. >For the rebels, the preservation of slavery was always the primary cause for the rebellion. Source? General Lee was against slavery.
  - ArkyBeagle 12y ago
    Lee simply could not bear the thought of taking up arms against Virginia. The majority of people who took up arms did so out of a sense of being dominated by the North. Even if they perceived that slavery was under attack, this was without evidence. To the case that slavery was not considered at risk, Jefferson Davis' nearly only strategy for financing the war was to appeal to the British, who overwhelmingly bought all that cotton. A mass propaganda campaign, led by Karl Marx, saw to Britain not supporting the Confederacy - they simply expanded the mercantile reach of the East India Company into Egyptian cotton. It's hard to explain what "honor" meant then. This was about what they called honor. Explaining what really happened is pretty difficult. It sort of doesn't make any sense.
smacktoward 12y ago
That quote is a bit misleading when taken out of context. Early in the war, there were a lot of conservative Northern Democrats who felt that, while crushing the rebellion was a valid war aim, going beyond that to emancipation of the slaves was not. They felt that insisting on emancipation would poison any chance of ever reintegrating the South into the Union. Since Lincoln was the first President ever elected by the then-new Republican party, which had a strong pro-emancipation faction, these conservatives tended to view Lincoln as a potentially dangerous radical whose ideology could potentially sabotage the war effort. At the war's opening Lincoln tended to agree with them. But a year of hard fighting that saw a string of Northern defeats changed his thinking. He began to feel that only by embracing a higher goal than political union could the North seize the moral high ground it would need to keep its people from giving up in frustration. So he slowly began to swing towards emancipation. However, it was critical while he was making that swing that word of it not leak out, since if it was revealed prematurely, without the right buildup, it could shock the conservatives into bolting from the national unity coalition of Republicans and Democrats together that he had assembled at the start of the war. So even as he was drafting what became the Emancipation Proclamation, he was furiously insisting to anyone who asked that he intended nothing of the sort. (The quote you cited comes from an open letter Lincoln wrote during this period to a prominent conservative New York newspaper editor named Horace Greeley as part of this PR effort -- see http://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-lincoln-reply-horace-greeley-slavery-union-restoration-union.html http://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-linc...) It worked, at least as well as it needed to work; while the conservatives never really trusted Lincoln, they couldn't ever pin him down on the slavery issue either. And by the time he revealed his shift, it was clear to everyone that the conservatives' dream that the South could be reconciled with sweet words and restraint was a fantasy -- the South was in earnest, they were playing for keeps, and the only way they would be brought back into the union was with fire and sword.
- vacri 12y ago
  This being said, there is a big difference between 'ending slavery' and 'full equality'. For example. white women in the US at the time weren't slaves, but they weren't 'fully equal'. They couldn't vote, for example.

by ancap 12y ago

mikeash 12y ago

The war involved a lot of people on both sides, and it's reasonable to think of a lot of them as contributing aims. It's reasonable to say that full equality for black citizens was an aim of the war even if it wasn't an aim of Lincoln. After all, it's not like he started it singlehandedly.

ancap 12y ago
>It's reasonable to say that full equality for black citizens was an aim of the war even if it wasn't an aim of Lincoln I find it very hard to believe that more than a few people in the entire country had any such concept of "full equality for black citizens", let alone for it to be an aim of he war. As it was, there wasn't even a such thing as a black citizen in that day. >After all, it's not like he started it singlehandedly. If Lincoln did not want the war it would not have happened.
- ArkyBeagle 12y ago
  The secession of South Carolina was a reaction only to Lincoln being elected, not to anything he'd done. Lincoln was elected in November; South Carolina seceeded in December. Inaugurations were done then in March. Sumter happened in April.
  - ancap 12y ago
    Secession is not an act of war, neither did it require a war in response. Sumter, was, in effect, a non event where no humans were killed. Lincoln's reaction to Sumter, however, led to the death of nearly a million people.
    - ArkyBeagle 12y ago
      I see two "axioms" in play - "was secession a legitimate state's right, yes or no?". As tests go, this one was pretty conclusive. The South had maybe two stratagems that produced even a draw; they did ( or could ) not choose either. I think of what we think of as "civilization" as a set of filters on humanity's basic prehistoric predilection for blood sacrifice. Sometimes these filters break down...

jordanb 12y ago

Lincoln's relationship with slavery "evolved" during the war. In 1860 the Republican party platform promised that they were only opposed to the expansion of slavery, they did not propose to end it. In the early stages of the war Lincoln reiterated his modest goals with respect to slavery in order to try to keep slave states in the union (this partially worked) and to broker a quick end to the rebellion. With the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln made his cause explicitly anti-slavery, and in the 1864 election the Republican platform explicitly included the complete abolition of slavery. For the rebels, the preservation of slavery was always the primary cause for the rebellion. The fact that a Republican could become president -- even one on a limited platform -- was proof enough to them that slavery was not safe from political reform as long as they remained in the union. For a brilliant account of the relationship between slavery and rebellion I recommend The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine: http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Dixie-Revolution-Transformed/dp/0812978722/ http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Dixie-Revolution-Transforme...

ancap 12y ago
>In 1860 the Republican party platform promised that they were only opposed to the expansion of slavery, they did not propose to end it. In the early stages of the war Lincoln reiterated his modest goals with respect to slavery in order to try to keep slave states in the union (this partially worked) and to broker a quick end to the rebellion. As noted in my reply above. Early in his presidency, Lincoln promoted a constitutional amendment which would have permanently protected the institution of slavery. >For the rebels, the preservation of slavery was always the primary cause for the rebellion. Source? General Lee was against slavery.
- ArkyBeagle 12y ago
  Lee simply could not bear the thought of taking up arms against Virginia. The majority of people who took up arms did so out of a sense of being dominated by the North. Even if they perceived that slavery was under attack, this was without evidence. To the case that slavery was not considered at risk, Jefferson Davis' nearly only strategy for financing the war was to appeal to the British, who overwhelmingly bought all that cotton. A mass propaganda campaign, led by Karl Marx, saw to Britain not supporting the Confederacy - they simply expanded the mercantile reach of the East India Company into Egyptian cotton. It's hard to explain what "honor" meant then. This was about what they called honor. Explaining what really happened is pretty difficult. It sort of doesn't make any sense.

smacktoward 12y ago

That quote is a bit misleading when taken out of context. Early in the war, there were a lot of conservative Northern Democrats who felt that, while crushing the rebellion was a valid war aim, going beyond that to emancipation of the slaves was not. They felt that insisting on emancipation would poison any chance of ever reintegrating the South into the Union. Since Lincoln was the first President ever elected by the then-new Republican party, which had a strong pro-emancipation faction, these conservatives tended to view Lincoln as a potentially dangerous radical whose ideology could potentially sabotage the war effort. At the war's opening Lincoln tended to agree with them. But a year of hard fighting that saw a string of Northern defeats changed his thinking. He began to feel that only by embracing a higher goal than political union could the North seize the moral high ground it would need to keep its people from giving up in frustration. So he slowly began to swing towards emancipation. However, it was critical while he was making that swing that word of it not leak out, since if it was revealed prematurely, without the right buildup, it could shock the conservatives into bolting from the national unity coalition of Republicans and Democrats together that he had assembled at the start of the war. So even as he was drafting what became the Emancipation Proclamation, he was furiously insisting to anyone who asked that he intended nothing of the sort. (The quote you cited comes from an open letter Lincoln wrote during this period to a prominent conservative New York newspaper editor named Horace Greeley as part of this PR effort -- see http://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-lincoln-reply-horace-greeley-slavery-union-restoration-union.html http://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-linc...) It worked, at least as well as it needed to work; while the conservatives never really trusted Lincoln, they couldn't ever pin him down on the slavery issue either. And by the time he revealed his shift, it was clear to everyone that the conservatives' dream that the South could be reconciled with sweet words and restraint was a fantasy -- the South was in earnest, they were playing for keeps, and the only way they would be brought back into the union was with fire and sword.

vacri 12y ago
This being said, there is a big difference between 'ending slavery' and 'full equality'. For example. white women in the US at the time weren't slaves, but they weren't 'fully equal'. They couldn't vote, for example.