this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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The straightest line I can draw is to simply point at the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. This would have simply not been possible had the southern states not rebelled and - as a consequence - temporarily lost their statehood and representation. Without the Civil War you simply could not have had the majorities necessary nor the moral imperative of 600k dead Americans, to legally exorcise the ghost of slavery from the soul of the nation.
Absent things getting significantly worse, they could not have so rapidly improved.
Not Lincoln, but Polk and Tyler and Pierce and Buchanan (with Filmore being a Biden-esque dude who failed to stop the train from careening off the tracks). Lincoln was the consequence of half a dozen new slave states rapidly joining the union and spreading the curse of slavery like wildfire. The huge expansion in arable land available to slavers combined with a steady rise in the domestic slave population, resulted in slavery becoming this enormous economic engine that sucked in all the neighboring states and necessitating court decisions like Dredd Scott and new legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slave auctions right outside the halls of Congress, slave gangs kidnapping freemen as far north as Rhode Island and Wisconsin, and slaves being put on display in northern states by visiting southern plutocrats had a serious impact on northern perceptions of slavery. It wasn't just a peculiar institution in a far away land, but a barbarism committed right out your own front door.
And it did culminate in a number of failed slave revolts, high profile slave murders, and various consequential conspiracy theories psychically destabilizing a lot of the southern population. John Brown's raid was the fulfillment of a long-held fear in southern households - that one day all these slaves would rise up and murder their masters. And Lincoln's election was seen as giving a guy like John Brown the Presidency.
That's why the Civil War was already in full swing before Lincoln even took office. He didn't need to do anything. The powder keg had already exploded before he even reached DC.
Thank you. I'll have to read this when I'm in a better headspace to do so. I really appreciate your taking the time to write it and engage in good faith.
It has been a few months since you wrote this and I've finally been able to take since time to read it. I can certainly see the connections that you were making now. However, I'm not sure that I agree entirely with your conclusions.
The actions of the slavers were not intended to bring about positive change. Nor do I find evidence to suggest that making the world a worse place will inevitably push the pendulum in the other direction. It seems much more of a correlation/causation fallacy coupled with "ends justify the means" philosophy, intentionally inflicting suffering in the hope that it ultimately results in good, without concrete data to show that it would or even could.
However, again, I would like to thank you for taking the time to clarify. Both here and in other comment threads.
No. But the partitioned system was already fraying, as the slave population began to eclipse the native white population in the south and spill over the borders into nominally "free" states up north. New York City was the largest hub of human trafficking in the nation when the war started, thanks to the Fugitive Slave Act.
By holding a unified obstructionist minority position, they could delay legal abolition indefinitely. Only by leaving the Union did they surrender their right to obstruct.
It should be noted that South Carolina was firing on Fort Sumtner before Buchanan was even out of office. So unless you consider "electing Lincoln" to be the mistake abolitionists made, I wouldn't consider the means questionable.
No problem.