re: #96 HappyWarrior

What I’ve brought up in the past to those who like to blame the war on “Lincoln’s aggression” is that 9 of the 13 states of the CSA seceded before Lincoln officially became president. Oh and the secessionists fired on a fort that was US army property. The real tragedy of the war if you ask me is that most Confederates got to walk off scot free but Southern blacks were relegated to second class citizenship for a century.

A really effective Reconstruction would have required a far longer commitment than the North was willing to undertake. That kind of ‘garrison and change’ commitment is one that America really was not psychologically capable of undertaking prior to the end of World War II.