The unnecessary civil war resulted in the unnecessary deaths of more than 600,000 Americans.
Pinning this one on Lincoln? Last time I checked there was this Ft Sumter thing in S.C. Let's cut the crap here. The South seceded because it wanted to continue a peculiar institution and knew it was simply a matter of time before it would be legally and lawfully abolished. Unnecessary civil war??? War is never "necessary." Wars are fought because political agreement cannot be found. As Clausewitz so rightly put it, war is an extension of politics by other means. States rights, slavery, right to secession...pick your favorite. The Civil War resolved everyone of them.
Lincoln imposed the first federal income tax.
True. Name a modern advanced country that isn't petrocarbon wealthy that doesn't have one of these now? Also, please don't forget to add it was also abolished after the war was over. As Ben Franklin liked to say, half truths are the greatest of lies. Yes Lincoln was dead, I know that. Also, don't forget that the US was in the initial throes of urbanization and the tax base had changed greatly.
Lincoln imposed the first federal mandatory conscription.
True. The civil war is generally acknowledged as the first significant war of the industrial revolution as well. We just happened to be at the cutting edge of history. And, it worked.
Lincoln set the precedent for secession being punishable by death in the USA. Throughout the rest of the world, secession is usually a peacefully and mutually beneficial affair.
Interesting choice of the words "secession being punishable by death." I'm pretty sure over half the country viewed it as treason which was punishable by death from the start of American history. Being shot, run through with a sword, stoned, enslaved etc. has pretty much been the standard for rebellion since time immemorial. Every signatory to the Declaration of Independence would have been hung, but we won.
One of my favorite aspects of Civil War history is the final six months of the Confederate goverment in VA...the legislative acts they passed really exposed the entire lie that was the supposed moral high ground of secession and demonstrated the absolute practical failure in application of the southern implementation of what was also basically the US Constitution. I'm personally glad I'm not a member of one of the 50 Banana Republics of America...if the South would have won, how many more wars would have been fought here? Ponder that counter-factual for awhile.
I've spent a significant part of my adult life south of the Mason-Dixon line and on one hand it bothers me that there is such PC with regards to honoring the soldiers who fought in gray. I think most of them believed they were doing the right thing as they saw it to paraphrase Lincoln, but I personally draw the line hard on what their government was fighting for. It was not good, nor just, or in any way defensible morally and the symbols of that government are odious to me personally.
More importantly...how'd we get to debating the civil war in a Romney thread. :-)
