The Civil War News & Views Open Discussion Forum

Re: Help Wanted part II
In Response To: Re: Help Wanted part II ()

Dennis, I see a lot of simularities that seem to duplicate the political situation prior to the ACW. One of those simularities seems to be the collapes od the Democrat Party in the Northern States during Buchanan's Presidency and the collapes of the Republican party in recent history. It would also seem that BHO is duplicating the political style of Lincoln.

That is part of my basic question.

How did an almost political unknown, in Lincoln, manage to get his message out to the Northern people without the aid of such modern days avenues as television. Were newspapers and stump speeches enough to accomplish that? Or was it the politican organization of the Republican party? Or was it something else?

There again how did the Republican party, which had a reputation of being radical in its nature, become such a political force in just a few short years? I know that the basis of the Republican party grew out of the old Whig party. But the old Whig party was not especially held in good favor, and that is why it collapsed.

So where did this political power come from?

I don't believe that it was so much Lincoln, or the Republican Party, as it was that they recieved the benefit of the general political discontent in the nation at that time.

The disdain for Slavery in the northern state, to me, does not seem to be that much of a universal driving force to propel the Republican Party and their candidate into the White House. BUT, I do see the anti-secession plank in the 1860 Republican platform as being such an issue, which could lite such a fire among the northern states. And such an attitude would have granted Lincoln the tacid permission that Lincoln needed to control the events that lead to the Fort Sumter crisis. A crisis, which was too good to waste, as one of our modern political advise to BHO has said, for the radical Republicans to achieve their objective of the abolishion of slavery.

So as I see it, it was more likely that the threat of Secession, and possible dissolution of the United States, and the anti-secession pro-union sentiment in the North, oddly enough when you consider the Hartford Convention, that was more the root cause of the ACW, more so than the slavery issue itself.

I was really wondering if anyone else saw this possibility?

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