[Peace-discuss] the stinkin' lincoln legacy

[Morton K. Brussel]

You seem unable to make distinctions. I was alluding to the situation  
that Lincoln faced. Each example of yours entertains a different
discussion. Hiroshima- Nagasaki was a question of how to end the war,  
how many lives to be saved. There are substantive arguments on that  
question. Terrorism (Reagan) or not is another question quite  
different from Lincoln's problems. The number of feasible, rational,  
actions open in each case differs. The tendency to blend different  
situations together makes for an intellectual mush, and the poetry is  
of no help.

--mkb


On May 21, 2009, at 3:53 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> Yeah, it's as pointless as discussing what FDR should have done in  
> 1933, Truman
> in 1945, Kennedy in 1962, Reagan in Iran-Contra, Bush in 2003, or  
> Obama last
> month.  Don't you see it's time to move on?
>
> Or, as the poet puts it,
>
> 	Better stay away from those
> 	That carry around a fire hose
> 	Keep a clean nose
> 	Watch the plain clothes
> 	You don't need a weather man
> 	To know which way the wind blows...
>
>
> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>> 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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