The Meaning of the Gettysburg Address

[Thomas Thorne]

(09-06-2012 11:45 AM)william l. richter Wrote:  To Jerry Madonna (and others),

all attempts to compromise the War foundered upon Abraham Lincoln’s refusal to go against the Republican Platform of 1860 and adopt the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott opinion; namely, that slavery could not be kept out of the western territories before statehood.

Compromise consists of both parties in a dispute agreeing that each side must give up certain things they love and accept certain things they abhor.

I don't think Lincoln and the Republican Party would have considered their abandonment of their most cherished belief and reason for existence-no slavery in the territories- a compromise. As part of this compromise, the South would have insisted on Congressional enactment of Slave Codes to protect slavery in the territories. What part of this "compromise" was something the South equally cherished. and was prepared to give up?

I think the South made a terrible mistake in making the mere election of Lincoln the reason for secession. In denying their constitutional obligation to submit to the authority of the constitutionally elected President, they broke the most fundamental law of the democratic process. This made any concessions from Lincoln regarding slavery to be impossible as the integrity of the democratic process would be impugned.

A better Southern strategy would have to carefully calculate what harm the Lincoln administration could have caused the South. As no party controlled the Senate and the Republicans would only have enjoyed a plurality in the House of Representatives that would have met in Dec 1861, Republican legislative efforts to somehow enact anti-slavery legislation would have been defeated and obnoxious Republican judicial appointments would likely have been defeated.

It is interesting that the South seceded before they presented terms to the North for remaining in the Union in a non electoral environment where for the first time the latter would realize that secession was more than electoral strutting. One of the most striking aspects of the secession winter was the refusal of Republican leaders to take secession seriously and once effectuated, they deemed it a temper tantrum by a minority which did not reflect majority Southern sentiment.
Tom