Lincoln and Ft. Sumter

[Bill Richter]

No, no, Tom. It was Lincoln's advantage to start the war over the firing on the national flag on a ship full of provisions. This was a way to bring the Democrats in on his side, stressing Union over what many in the North saw initially as a war for ending slavery. Remember that slavery was much more than a labor system. It was a social system, akin to the North's pre-war use of what later came to be called segregation or Jim Crow. Most Northerners did not want to face the question of what to do with the ex-slaves after they were freed. Take a look at Alex Stephens' discussion with Lincoln aboard the River Queen, I believe it was. When he asked Lincoln what was to happen to freed slaves, Lincoln replied "root hog, or die." Read Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North; Eugene H. Berwanger, The Frontier against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension Controversy; and Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream.