2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I Saw "Lincoln" Today [View all]Polldancer2012
(88 posts)and I will respectfully correct you.
1861 would be akin to 1938 in your example and in 1938 there were no concentration camps ( in the WW2 sense of the word) and no occupied Europe.
I'm talking about 1861 negotiations. At that time Europe was already anti-slavery. Even the South could see the writing on the wall.
Here's the real problem. And I'm confident of this. Lincoln HAD NO IDEA that the Civil War would erupt into what it did. He anticipated sending some called up troops down south for a little saber rattling and all would be good. Once the war got bad and the Union was getting pummeled, Lincoln HAD NO CHOICE but escalation. Circumstances moved Lincoln, not the other way around.
At that point he became desperate to save the Union and fought the war decisively.
Let's be graphic... Lincoln's war cost 140x the deaths as Shrub's Iraq in 1/3 the time. There's NOTHING heroic or awe inspiring about the USCW.