[Peace-discuss] the stinkin' lincoln legacy

[Morton K. Brussel]

I find all this discussion about what might have been rather silly. No  
one knows what the future might have been, in the short or thelong  
run,  if other actions/policies had been taken before or after Fort  
Sumter. It's what's called idle speculation, that leads to nowhere.    
--mkb

On May 21, 2009, at 3:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> Options other than war were available to Lincoln, and he was aware  
> of them.
>
> Advice came from the most distinguished American military figure of  
> the day,
> Gen. Winfield Scott (1786-1866). He served on active duty as a  
> general longer
> than any other man in American history and may have been the ablest  
> American
> commander of his time; he devised the Anaconda Plan that would be  
> used to defeat
> the Confederacy.
>
> In a letter addressed to  Governor Seward (leading Republican and  
> Lincoln's Secretary of State) -- and obviously meant for Lincoln's  
> eyes -- on the day preceding Lincoln's inauguration (March 3, 1861),  
> Scott suggested that the president had four possible courses of  
> action:
>
>  [1] adopt the Crittenden Compromise (which restored the Missouri  
> Compromise
> line: slavery would be prohibited north of the 36° 30′ parallel  
> and guaranteed
> south of it);
>
>  [2] collect duties outside the ports of seceding States or blockade  
> them;
>
>  [3] conquer those States at the end of a long, expensive, and  
> desolating war,
> and to no good purpose; or,
>
>  [4] say to the seceded States, "Wayward sisters, depart in peace!"
>
> Scott clearly preferred the forth.  In retrospect, it probably would  
> have been best.
>
> (For more on why that would have been the case, see the recent book  
> by William Marvel I mentioned the other day.)  --CGE
>
>
> John W. wrote:
>> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 10:37 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag <mailto:ewj at pigs.ag 
>> >> wrote:
>> Death toll from "Lincoln's War"
>> "The number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these
>> casualties exceed the nation's loss in all its other wars, from the
>> Revolution through Vietnam."
>> Adjusted for today's US population, the number would be over 6  
>> million.
>> I'm curious what you would have done as President in 1861, Wayne.  
>> Simply let
>> the South secede?
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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