a) but your original statement was "If he was so good why could he not avoid a war?" Well obviously he could not have affected those chances either way BEFORE he was elected in late 1860, and by then war was indeed inevitable.

b) You keep changing the argument. We were discussing a post civil war world where the south wins. Now suddenly there was no war at all? Then if there was no war then would have been no secession either.

c) Not only tanks but 48 fractured independent states with a history of warfare and mistrust. I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you think the Soviets were not expansionist or opportunist.

d) Not one dollar? Obviously you aren't counting the billions of dollars made through spin off technologies. I myself had a glass of Tang just last night.

Iceman, you also bring up some great points but let me one question: Would the USA have ever gotten involved in WWII if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor? Before you answer with your heart, think about it: 1. FDR was running for reelection. 2. We were in the middle of an economic depression. 3. No popular support to assist the Allies. 4. The Lend Lease act, FDR's way of helping England, was quid pro quo. Had to be, otherwise see #1 and #2.


Just as was pointed out about the Battle of Gettysburg, the stars had to be
perfectly aligned for us to get involved.

Takeda, 1st and 2nd point. What I gather is that you think without a war there would have been no industrial revolution. I can't even begin to enumerate all the reasons that makes no sense. The first one that comes to mind is that markets decide the success or failure of industry.
3rd point- Even with the cotton gin cotton was a labor-intensive industry so the effects of its mechanization were not enough. Also this completely discounts every crop that is not cotton. Of course, the end of slavery in such circumstances is pure speculation. However, I think most people would agree it would not have continued long.
4th point- not immediate emancipation, remember that W.Virginia and Kentucky, the only two slave states in the union, had slavery all the way to the end of the war. Of course, it could be argued that ending slavery sooner was worth the most bloody war in American history but then you get into all kinds of questions like 'what's a life worth?' and it gets sticky and difficult to discuss.
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August;

a) It is true that the south seceded before Lincoln took office but that by no means would make avoiding war and reconciling impossible. My main point is that if he were as great as we believe, why did we get into a civil war on his watch? Of course, congress has a role to play too so it may not be all his fault.
b) I do see a couple of things I said that could be interpreted to mean "if the south won" but that was not my intent. From the beginning I intended only to say that the war was wasteful and should not have even happened. Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
c) Saying the states would be 'fractured' is a bit of a logical leap. Especially if there was a common perceived threat. As is 'a history of warfare and mistrust'. This is all supposed to be in the event the war never occurred. Where do the war and mistrust come from?
d) Firstly, I said through exploitation of the moon. Tang does not exploit the moon for its production. In addition, Tang was around before the moon flights, but its adoption by NASA gave it a marketing boost.

Finally, even if that and similar products did eventually recoup the massive investiture of money in the moon landings, it would be in spite of government waste, not because of it.

To re-seummarize, Lincoln was not as good as we all think he was and the war was wasteful.

Hold back USLc, if it wasn't for the billions of dollars spent on NASA and it's ancilliaries, I'd be stabbing myself a lot securing my Depends with a safety pin!

Great point! It's something we often tend to miss when we debate what historical figures should have done in a particular situation. As Lcpl says "hindsight is 20-20" but it's also the sheer guts required to embark on a course of action when the result is in doubt.

Lincoln did what he had to do to to keep the Union together. Did he make mistakes? Well he was human so of course he did, but what is important is that he prevailed and in doing so put my country on the path to greatness.

Ha, I never said that the industrial revolution was the product of the Civil War, nor did I imply it. Even a superfluous overview of American history will show you that the industrial revolution had its origins prior to the war. However, once again, that same overview will also demonstrate that the large-scale industrial complex responsible for the economic boom of the late 19th century was, by and large, a product of the industrial requirements of the American Civil War. In short, we had factories and industries, they were not nearly as numerous as they were in the years during and the decades after the war. This was due to two factors: 1) The materiel requirement of fighting the war, and 2) the material requirement of reconstruction in the years following the war. Both factors forever changed American industry, and both were products of the American Civil War.

Now you're dancing. You theorized that mechanization would have, at least, contributed to the end of slavery. The cotton gin geometrically multiplied cotton output, and yet the demand for slaves soared. You can't have clearer evidence than this. In terms of other crops, cotton was the cash crop of the southern states, so much that it alone was what nearly brought Great Britian into the war on their behalf. Much of Europes textile industries depended on southern cotton.

In 1860, the United States was the only major country in the world to still allow for legalized slavery. Even Russia had begun to emancipate the serfs. While slavery may have been phased out without a war, it ended within 4 years with one. That, in the long scale, is immediate. This is not to say that the war was fought over slavery, as it was not. None-the-less, it was yet another effect of a war that, contrary to your point, begins to sound less and less useless as we go on.

Sorry to isolate a single part of a post, but everyone has been carefully dancing around the slavery question, and I have to jump into it here.

The war was fought over secession and reunion. That much is obvious. But the state's right's and slavery problems date to the Constitution. Delegates from the northern states wanted to outlaw the importation of slaves. Delegates from the southern states threatened to abandon the convention if outvoted on that question. The Virginia Plan had representation being totally proportional to population. The smaller states wanted equal representation for each state. This led to the system we still have today, with the upper house (Senate) having equal representation for each state and the lower house (House of Representatives) having proportional representation. In either case Southern delegates argued that their populations were so small that slaves should be part of the enumeration (hence the 3/5ths rule, in which five slaves count as three free men for representation purposes). When the northern states objected, the southern states refused to take part unless they were accomodated. The northerners, realizing that unless they acted as a whole they would likely fail (there's that "hang together" thing again), were forced to compromise. The southerners agreed that importation of slaves would cease by 1807.

Side-note: did you know that a coalition of Federalists attempted to implement the secession of several New England states as a protest to the War of 1812?

The main argument of the early 1800s between North and South was the question of equality in numbers, the Southern states complaining that the vast majority of new states were 'Free' states. This lead to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which artificially forced the balance to remain equal. The Compromise of 1850 included the Fugitive Slave Act, which required Free States to return runaway slaves.

In 1854 South Carolina threatened to secede if John Fremont were to become president, simply because he represented the new Republican Party, and they were Abolitionist.

In 1860 South Carolina again threatened to secede if Abraham Lincoln was elected, for the same reason. They carried out this threat.

Of the original seven seceeding States, virtually every one of their Ordinances of Secession lists the leading cause as the refusal of certain Northern States to obey the Fugitive Slave Law, and South Carolina's refers to them directly as 'The Slave-Holding States'.

I don't argue that slavery was the only cause, or disagree with the concept that most of the soldiers and many of the leaders on both sides didn't have it in mind as a reason to go to war, but the war was fought over secession, and the Southern States seceded almost exclusively over the idea that the Northern States wanted them to give up their way of life, specifically slavery, and were willing to use Federal power to do it. Nowhere in their listed causes can I find mention of tariffs imposed on English goods.

Sorry to rant, but I think they stated their causes quite plainly, and nowhere in their listed causes can I find mention of tariffs imposed on English goods.

You're absolutely right, Steve. I should have been more clear that my intention was to cut off the counter-argument that I was oversimplifying the cause of the war by insisting that it was the abolition of slavery foremost. It was really about repesentation in government, in which the southern states were hindered by the fact that their economy was largely based on slave labor, which greatly impacted their population. So, yes, slavery can been seen as the root of the problem. Still, 'let's free the slaves' was hardly the rallying cry of the Union, at least at the onset.

Side-note:
Some interesting facts and thoughts with regard to the American Civil war I found here: http://usaerklaert.wordpress.com/200...rauma-der-usa/
It is a blog run an American expat in Germany. I would have simply quoted the whole piece but it is not written in English, so I tried to roughly sum up some of the many points the author makes:

A popular claim: “Europeans and Americans have drawn different conclusions from WWI and WW II. Because American civilians never suffered the consequences of the horrors of war on their own soil, they have no idea what war really means. This explains the different attitudes of America and Europe towards using military forces to solve conflicts”.

The author tries to put things into perspective and points out that such statements tend to irritate Americans. If there is a national trauma of the USA, it is not Vietnam but the Civil war.
The most costly war in the history of the USA was the Civil war which took place in …well, America. More than 550.000 soldiers died. 23.000 Americans alone died in the 12 hours lasting battle of Antietam..That is more than the combined American, British, Canadian and German casualties during the Normandy landing 1944.

The Civil war marks the beginning of “modern”, industrialised warfare. In the face of advanced weapons technology the old infantry tactics of Napoleon times which still were used in the beginning turned out to be obsolete.

A consequence: trench war in Virginia
http://712educators.about.com/cs/his...blcwphcas7.htm


It was also the beginning of “total war”, Sherman’s “march to the sea”, where you do not only try to beat the enemy armies on the field but also directly aim to destroy the enemies economic resources and infrastructure. Heavy suffering amongst the civilian population is the consequence.

Sherman: “Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses and people will cripple their military resources…I can make the march and make Georgia howl”.

“Sherman’s neckties”:
http://ngeorgia.com/ang/Sherman's_Neckties


Richmond destroyed:
http://www.archives.gov/research/civ...il-war-118.jpg



So, you could say at least that when WW1 broke out, it was the Europeans who were sticking flowers to their guns and had naïve and romantic misconceptions of war while Americans probably knew better what this war would ”feel“ like because of the experiences they had made in the Civil war and therefore they were not so eager to join in the fight.

I think it is exactly as you say. At that time many people were still alive who had witnessed the horrors firsthand or through their parents. Not so in europe. Germany for instance had fought a cheap war in 1871 and people thought it would be the same in 1914. Of course we also had a radically different education at that time.

However we have other examples for post WWII, the USSR and Germany both had extreme losses in WWII and still took opposite directions in that respect, so exlaining all with psychology is not so simple.

Some excellent posts from all participants. I cannot contribute much on that level, though I have studied the subject a bit. So I'd better read and leave this to the US guys.

But it's obvious that a different outcome would have destabilized the situation in North America, lead to more wars and have repercussions for a still likely WW 1+2.

Good thread.

Makes me wonder. What would the world be like today if the south had won?

Good points made so far. I think I will amend my views a bit, esp. due to SailorSteve's post. Takeda, you made some good points as well but I don't feel you are really addressing my arguments.
In brief response to your last reply to me;

a) All I said was that the market is the ultimate determining force in the growth of industry. I cede that the American Civil War may have accelerated it but was not a prerequisite.

b) Your cotton gin counterpoint still does not address the fact that many other crops were grown in the south, nor the fact that the process remained labor-intensive. When I say mechanization would have made slave labor less desirable I mean that when machines become more efficient than expensive slaves, the economic desire to utilize them vanishes. Granted I am omitting possible cultural/racial motivations to maintain slavery, but I believe these would have vanished just as oppression to the Civil Rights Movement essentially did.

c) Going to have to disagree with the "slavery ending sooner was worth the most bloody war in American history" argument. Having never been a slave or owned one, my limited perspective encourages me to believe that a life lost is a greater sacrifice then a life enslaved. But, then again, that is a matter of personal opinion and impossible to resolve in debate.

Thanks for challenging my points and making me think a little though. I really do love to be questioned and/or proven wrong.