I was so hoping Birdwatcher would answer this for me.
What's the matter? The Constitution got you by the tongue?
Naah, I was waiting for you to answer the question....
Do you wish that this nation had divided in 1861?
You avoided that question and countered with another to the effect of do I think the ends justified the means....
Well, I gotta say, having walked the fields and hillsides where the dead lay in windrows a century and a half ago, I wish that the South had not been collectively stupid enough to pour most all their economic eggs into that one evil and divisive basket. Heck, since EVERYONE was talking secession for decades prior to the actual war, I might also wish that the South woulda had the collective smarts to develop their own industrial centers.
But yeah, out of respect for all of those brave young men, in this case I gotta believe the end justified the means.
Ok, for a third time?
Do you wish the South had won?
Birdwatcher
You still, as I expected, dodged the question but I will humor you with an answer. There should have been no war. Nobody wins a civil war.
Had Lincoln restricted himself to his constitutional authority there would have been no war. But, much as Obama is currently doing, Lincoln did what was politically advantageous to him and his political backers/financiers and fellow political ideologues. Rule by fiat and dictate not rule by law and constitutional authority.
The Southern states willingly voted to join the Union and there is nothing within the Constitution that says they were not allowed to likewise vote willingly to leave the Union.
If they did so vote there was no provision to legally force the South to remain by armed invasion.
Since Lincoln chose to totally ignore the Constitution, the Southern states should have most definitely left the Union.
As to the development of an industrial base, the advancing industrial revolution would have forced the South to convert from manual labor to industrial production in order to survive.
Most likely by 1870-1875 economic realities would have addressed the slavery question. Unfortunately, Lincoln and his fellow radicals preferred to resort to force of arms.
Then the thirst for revenge during during the Reconstruction period just exacerbated the effects of a long bloody war and sowed the seeds that allowed the rise of Jim Crow.
