A House-Divided

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Bill (and without Lincoln's plan?). I agree Lincoln was a clever (and diplomatic) brain! However, I do not think he sought war. I think he gave the best assessment of the situation in his Second Inaugural Address:

"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came...
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war...
Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph..."