tina (tls@ziplink.net)
Sat, 05 Feb 2000 15:56:36 -0500
At 07:58 AM 2/5/00 -0500, you wrote:
>and yet it is impossible to state unequivically that Lincoln's method's were
>"half-baked".
Sure you can. Just type <g>.
>1. Nobody can say that they were not the best decisions that could be made
>at the time, and
Admittedly, this is a 20/20 hindsight deal and it's easy to say that
it-would-have-been-better-if. I don't think they were the best decisions
that *could* be made, but, again, I'm sitting here safely 250 years lately,
not trying to make decisions on the spot about literally life-and-death,
long-term historical consequences.
>2. we will never know what the alternatives would have been.
But you could speculate based on the history.
>I think our country has learned and continues to learn how to conduct war on
>a trial-and-error basis,
Very true, very necessary, and extremely scary. "War" and "trial and error"
are not really words I like to see in the same sentence <g>.
>and I still think portraying his decisions as
>"half-baked" is a misstatement. "Half-baked" says to me that you think his
>decisions were not well considered or thought out. To say they were not
>successful is not to say they were "half-baked" but "unsuccessful". The
>Sudbury movement may very well turn out to be unsuccessful, but one cannot
>currently, and therefore ever, characterize it as half-baked.
First off, I'm not characterizing the Sudbury movement as half-baked. But,
yes, I think Lincoln's plan (or his advisors, policy-makers, Congress, etc.
etc.) could be called half-baked, not so much for the decisions he actually
made, but for the ones he failed to (apparently) even consider. No plan was
made for the South or the slaves after the war. The North's "policy" on
this mostly amounted to "You're free now. No, don't thank us, we'll find
our own way home. Oh, yeah, and don't follow us." From a historical
perspective certainly, this lack of any real policy led to very negative
ramifications for the next 200 years. At least. So, yes, half-baked as in
not even considered or thought out.
>Am I getting through?
Yup, but I still don't agree with all of it. Although I think Lincoln was
truly a great historical figure, I don't think the Civil War was the great
righteous, humanitarian cause we tend it view it as today. The North didn't
actually go to war over emancipation; it went to war to assert it's power
over the Southern states who felt they had the right to succession. For all
Lincoln's foresight and oratory powers, it took the succession to finally
goad the North into confrontation, not the slave issue.
At least that's my take as a history buff.
T.
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