Re: I see a bad moon risin'

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2009/5/4 6:22:42

Lloyd - Your post contains some assumptions that I am not sure you are aware of. The statement that Lincoln called for 100,000 troops "with which to invade the south" is one of them.

It would make more sense to assume they were to defend against a Confederate attack. This is not guesswork. The south had the upper hand for the first 2 or 3 years in the war and the south penetrated northern territory long before the north invaded the south. Southern guns were within earshot of Washington at one time.

As for raising an army and resupplying a fort being acts of war, this is a stretch. Didn't the south raise an army? Didn't they supply their troops? Were they acts of war?

Can you give me an official statement by Lincoln or Congress before the Fort Sumter attack that indicates they were prepared to go to war without provocation?

This is not an argument. I an asking for information. I seriously believe that the south could have seceded peacefully and the details could have been negotiated without bloodshed.

The handing over of Union property on Confederate soil, such as forts, post office buildings and other government property were such details.

Ozstatman, that was not a crack. Without the southern states the US would obviously be smaller, with less population, less wealth and therefore less influence in the world. For one thing what would happen to the gross national product without Texas oil, itself an immense source of wealth and the fuel that drove the economy for the last hundred years? For another what about the people of the south? Where would the US be politically, culturally , militarily if you removed all the southerners?

Looked at from the other direction, where would the south be without the north? In terms of land, population and wealth and therefore influence in the world?

Looked at objectively it would have made unimaginable differences to world history of the last 150 years, if one of the world's great powers wasn't there.