[Peace-discuss] the stinkin' lincoln legacy

[Morton K. Brussel]

Wayne, I'm not literate enough to recognize the author. You? Not bad.

--mkb

On May 21, 2009, at 4:21 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:

> They flutter behind you
> Your Possible Pasts
> Some bright-eyed and crazy
> Some frightened and lost
> A warning to anyone still in command
> Of their Possible Futures
> To Take Care...
>
> Strung out behind you
> The banners and flags
> Of your Possible Pasts
> Lie in tatters and rags.
>
>
> On 5/21/2009 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.
>>
>> -----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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>

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