I woke up still contemplating this…

Jimmy makes a bunch of good points; I have no trouble believing that history/media has shaped the public’s opinion of Lincoln, and he may have in fact been a lousy president. (I can’t know, but he was a politician, after all, so that’s not a big leap). I always appreciate having my perspective expanded.

However…

What this narrative fails to articulate is that the South wanted to secede *because* they were threatened with the loss of the slave labor force.

I’ve heard arguments that the secession was economic, and in one sense that’s true. It was also about states rights, and tariffs. But it comes back to slavery.

The economic benefits, the “rights” that the region was seeking to preserve, were the product of absolute theft: theft of the time, energy, work, and life force of other human beings, upon which the south built a prosperous economy and community.

It was a prosperity built on a foundation that nobody - no state or citizen - ever had the “right” to own.

Would “allowing” secession and then making the North a safe haven been better? Perhaps. Less government intervention, less war, usually better.

But how long would it have taken, and how many more slaves would have lived and died in bondage, while the free market played out?

History is indeed tricky…

Good morning 🤝 nostr:note1ug8rx09pa8x0fwgm45d8sumzj8ss9xxp5cqqj8lhm8cu34d42uzqvatlg9