Abolitionists & Disunionists, America Transformed, Antebellum Realities, Bringing on the War, Conservatism and Liberalism, Crusaders and Revolutionaries, Enemies of the Republic, Historians on History, Historical Accuracy, Lincoln Revealed, Lincoln's Blood Lust, Myth of Saving the Union, New England History, No Compromise, Northern Culture Laid Bare, Race and the North, Republican Party Jacobins, Southern Unionists, Withdrawing from the Union 
Comments Off on Lincoln’s Momentous Decision Lincoln’s Momentous Decision
The Republican party platform of 1860 was skillfully drawn to win support from East and West conservatives and radicals. It advanced a protective tariff for Northern industries, internal improvement subsidies, and the right of each State to control its own domestic institutions.
The Republicans were not anti-slavery, but opposed to its extension into the territories which they wanted preserved for their immigrant supporters.
What are referred to as “free States” of that period were actually “formerly free States,” as all the original States all inherited the British colonial slave-labor system. It follows that the Southern States of 1860 were all free States with a different labor system than the North.
It is important to point out that Lincoln carried no Southern States, and won election by plurality with only 39% of the vote. His party’s purely sectional character was what George Washington warned of in his farewell address.
Lincoln’s Momentous Decision
“Following the news of Lincoln’s election, South Carolina seceded from the Union in December of 1860. Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the poor white who would succeed Lincoln as President, denounced this act. “Whoever fires on our flag and attacks our forts I pronounce a traitor and he should meet a traitor’s doom.”
Davis retaliated by calling Johnson a “degenerate son of the South unworthy to sit in the Senate.” The die was cast: Davis argued before the Senate the Constitution right of secession.
Lincoln took the news of South Carolina’s secession calmly, but sent word to [Secretary of State William] Seward not to agree to the Crittenden Compromise, which would have preserved the Union without resort to war.
Commenting on Lincoln’s attitude, William E. Dodd wrote in his “Jefferson Davis”: “The popularity of the greatest war President has made students of the subject overlook his responsibility for this momentous decision.”
(The Iron Will of Jefferson Davis, Cass Canfield, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978, excerpts pp. 42-43)