What Would Have Happened If Lincoln Had Asked The American People First?

What would have happened if Lincoln, before he launched his war on the southern states, had gone to the people themselves and asked them if he should use military force against the south for seceding? After all, this was Lincoln's call to go to war. This was Lincoln's decision and no one else's. Lincoln could have kept the peace. Lincoln could have stopped hostilities at the snap of his fingers once they did begin.

As late as 1860, ninety percent of the people within the country were against war including those who opposed secession.

Who is it who always gets stuck in the meat grinder when the politicians start these wars in the first place? It's not the politicians.

 

Except that the Confederate States started the war when they bombarded Fort Sumter.

 

What has nothing to do with anything, just like a housewife who shoots an intruder is not the one which started the problem.

 

That didn't start a war. That was the first event when the war started. I suggest you find a local community college and take a history class. They have some available online as well.

www.devry.edu

 

If that housewife formed her own government, annexed her neighbor's house, then shot her neighbor as an intruder... then yes, she did start the problem.

 

They seceded from the Union, annexed federal property under an assumed but unproven authority, then opened fire on the occupants of that property. They started the war.

 

I think that would be akin to 9/11 happening and Bush then asking the people if he should use military force against Al Qaeda. If you're attacked (Ft. Sumter), you attack back.

 

Annexing from the union was not an act of war. The last thing they wanted was war. They wanted to be left alone....

Once again, please click the link I provided. An education in history is important. I would like for you to have one as well.

 

Your trite attempt to twist the analogy aside, the mechanism which triggered the "Wawh of Souhthawn Aggression" was a bit more complicated than that.

The war was far more about States Rights than anything else; Slavery was simply the catalyst, because the issue was about which governing body got to decide whether slavery should continue or not.

Make no mistake: slavery wasn't going to continue on for much longer, and Northerners had plenty of slaves themselves.

Lincoln, in fact, didn't declare freedom for slaves - the Emancipation Proclamation - for a full 1 1/2 years after the Civil War began, itself a priori evidence that the War wasn't primarily about slavery.

This was a game of tariffs and Washington D.C. imposing its will on the Southern States, and the firing upon Fort Sumter was the first shot, engaged long after the North had already drawn lines and imposed itself as enforcer. There is far more to it than merely "The South started the war by firing on Fort Sumter".

 

I didn't ask this.

 

Actually, annexing property with no proven authority and opening fire on the owners of that property is an act of war when perpetrated by governments. If you had any knowledge of history, you wouldn't deny this fact.

 

The Federal government and the United States of America owned Fort Sumter. They weren't intruders.

 

The war began prior to this. Not sure why you aren't grasping this:

http://www.raabcollection.com/abraham-lincoln-autograph/north-and-south-declarations-war

 

You're off topic. I didn't ask what Lincoln used to start his war, I specifically asked what would happen if Lincoln had gone to the people first and got their permission to proceed before he did. He could have withdrawn the garrison at Sumter before the confederate attack then asked.

 

That's not a very good comparison. It would only work as an analogy if you assume a case where nobody actually died on september 11th 2001.

If the towers were attacked and there were exactly zero casualties and the buildings remained mostly intact, what would have been the people's views on marching in open war on Afghanistan?

I doubt you'd see unconditional support.

It was a completely and utterly symbolic act with no practical meaning whatsoever.

 

Ability to comprehend analogies: you don't haz it.

 

Those bombs didn't fall on Ft. Sumter by themselves. And a lot of Southerners wanted war even if slavery didn't exist, as it didn't to MOST southern whites. Longstreet said "we should have freed the slaves and then whipped the Yankees."

 

That's what they tell me but, outside of slavery, they never say what particular state right was being denied by the federal government. You got an example of a state right that was being trampled by the northern states?

 

I disagree. If Al Qaeda had taken over the world Trade Center without killing anyone and claimed it as their own, most Americans would have supported kicking their ass.

 

As much as I have disagreed with many many of the decisions of presidents past and present to go to war, I think that the notion of putting up war decisions to a popular vote, or an opinion poll is one of the silliest propositions I have ever heard of. Don't get me wrong, I certainly beleive that the citizens of the US have a moral duty to let the government know exactly how they feel, and can hope to influence the commander in chief's decsions. But positing that poll numbers should be the determinant of a president's decision in acts of war is just weird.
Funny to see how the civil war is still so fresh in America's mind, as no one has answered your basic point, but instead has focused on whose fault it was...

 

Your premise that Lincoln could have avoided the war started by the Confederacy through a policy of appeasement is laughably naive.

 

How would Lincoln ask the South when they didn't even recognize his authority and had already imposed their own fake President?

 

I hate the idea of appeasement as much as the next guy, but why would the South have gone to war anyway if the North had appeased them through letting them secede and giving, or selling, them all the Federal property? (which they were in negotiations to do)