John Chuckman
COMMENT ON LINCOLN AND THE CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
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Response to a comment saying,” the US inherited slavery and, in fewer than one hundred years, fought a bloody fratricidal war to end it”
Sorry, that is wrong.
The Civil War was not about slavery.
It was about the power of the Federal Government versus the states. States’ Rights.
Lincoln effectively conducted a second revolution to establish the pre-eminence of the central government.
He himself said he would welcome leaving slavery in place if the country could be whole.
Lincoln personally disliked slavery, but was never ready to start a massive war over it.
His legacy, sadly, is American imperialism.
The US came through the war having become a major industrial power, and afterward seriously began to use that power to take from others. Ironclad ships, Gatling guns, and other military technology.
Remember, this was a lawyer who did a lot of work in Salem, Illinois for the Illinois Central corporation.
As with so many events and people in American history, we have inherited rather childish, fantasy interpretations of them.
