But in a fundamental sense, Trump’s most disturbing remark over the past few days may have been his unprompted comment about Abraham Lincoln during an appearance on Fox News: “Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled, you know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war.”
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And if he is, here’s the thing: The Civil War couldn’t have been “settled” by moderating Northern demands that the South give up its slaves, because there was no such demand.
Yes, Northern states had banned slavery within their own borders and many Northerners considered slavery abhorrent. But outspoken abolitionists who sought to end slavery everywhere were a small minority. If the South hadn’t seceded, slavery might well have continued unimpeded for decades.
The Civil War should have been settled by publicly executing every last Confederate leader. Would have saved us all a lot of trouble today.
It would’ve. We wouldn’t have to be dealing with traces of their trickling hate and inbred bullshit that’s still around today.
inbred? Is it some sort of colloquial slang or does it mean what it means for Southern states?
Except the idea wasn’t solely within those leaders. That was the major issue with reconstruction that followed. We weren’t just fighting people, we were fighting an idea. We’re still fighting it. We would only be so lucky to fully extinguish an idea by hanging a few thousand people from a tree.
Lincoln would have cut more slack, allowed the Southern states to reintegrate more fully. John Wilkes Booth, a Southern supporter, assassinated him and actually worsened his own cause.
Go read some history.