[Peace-discuss] the stinkin' lincoln legacy

[Morton K. Brussel]

On May 21, 2009, at 4:06 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:

> Ah Mort,  counterfactual gedanke experiments are well within the  
> scientific method and experience.  While they cannot change the past  
> or the future - for that matter - they can help us understand missed  
> possible alternative realities and reveal potential assumptions and/ 
> or presumptive conditions that were presumed to exist so as be  
> sufficient if not necessary in order to enable one to ground the  
> decisions that were made and actions that were taken.  Like all  
> experiments, the evidence is probabilistic and not deterministic;  
> and the conclusions are proofs the sense that they can be proven  
> empirically.  They are only open to disproof logically and  
> empirically. Some would say counterfactual gedanke experiments are  
> merely heuristic; but even so, heuristic exercises can be  
> instructive and profitable.

Laurie, they may be. But I believe in the present case that no  
compelling conclusions can be drawn. Given strong enough arguments, I  
guess I could be wrong. I haven't seen such compelling arguments here.  
On the other hand, it could be interesting to consider in depth other  
(long range) scenarios and speculations on what might have been.  
Here's an opportunity for for historical fiction novelists.

P.S. "Gedanken experiments"
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net 
> ] On Behalf Of Morton K. Brussel
> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 3:28 PM
> To: C.G.Estabrook
> Cc: Peace-discuss
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] the stinkin' lincoln legacy
>
> 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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