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Another civil war question

BH said:
There were no southern Presidents from Taylor to LBJ.
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Woodrow Wilson was from Virginia and Eisenhower was from Texas.
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Although Eisenhower was born in Texas, his family moved back to Abilene, Kansas, by the time he was about 2 years old, and he always considered Abilene his home town. Culturally, he always came across as a Midwesterner, not a Southerner in any way.
 
MarkW said:
BH said:
Woodrow Wilson was from Virginia and Eisenhower was from Texas.
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Although Eisenhower was born in Texas, his family moved back to Abilene, Kansas, by the time he was about 2 years old, and he always considered Abilene his home town. Culturally, he always came across as a Midwesterner, not a Southerner in any way.
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Yeah it's like calling GW a Connecticut Yankee.
 
And Lincoln let them back in the Union for the same reason. Boo!
 
BH said:
They were southern when they needed their state's electoral votes.
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Well a politician looking for votes will always try to appear to be all things to all people.

Put it this way: would Sam Rayburn have called either Eisenhower or Wilson a southern Pres?
 
Lincoln actually had little to say on the matter.
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Except for his Declaration of Amnesty and Reconstruction, wherin he stated that if 10% of the population were to take a loyalty oath, the state would be readmitted. People at the time accused him of doing this for the electoral votes. In 1864, both Tennessee and Louisiana qualified, and participated in the election, and Lincoln carried both states. While the election wasn't close, it looked as if it would be close.
 
Sarpedon said:
And Lincoln let them back in the Union for the same reason. Boo!
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"Back in the Union"???

I thought that was the whole Northern state's excuse for the war - that the Southern states never actually left the Union, they were only in rebellion. If they never left then "Letting them back in the Union" makes no sense. Lincoln setting conditions for the Southern States to be allowed back in the Union is an admission that the Confederacy was an independent and separate nation.
 
Yes, that was argued extensively by pedants at the time and since. The substance of the issue was whether it was advisable to allow portion of a nation to dissolve the nation at will. The answer was and still is no. Whether secession caused the seceding states to be out of the union or not is an artificial legal debate which I don't concern myself with. As I have stated before, such things are word arguments, and I don't care much for word arguments. Actions speak louder than words, however, and the act of rebellion caused a change in status, whatever words one uses to describe that change. Once the change had been made, a return to the old state was impossible. However, Lincoln chose to create a new status, and call it by the same name as the old, for his own purposes. He was both wiser, and kinder than I am, and probably his way was for the better. But the Union as it existed in 1850 no longer existed. The Secessionists did succeed in destroying the United States of America. What we have now is something different called by the same name. The legal words are simply an after the fact paint job. Words are useful, laws are useful, but never let their usefulness blind you to the fact that they are only an approximate description of reality, useful only within bounds.
 
Sarpedon said:
Lincoln actually had little to say on the matter.
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Except for his Declaration of Amnesty and Reconstruction, wherin he stated that if 10% of the population were to take a loyalty oath, the state would be readmitted. People at the time accused him of doing this for the electoral votes. In 1864, both Tennessee and Louisiana qualified, and participated in the election, and Lincoln carried both states. While the election wasn't close, it looked as if it would be close.
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Tennessee was readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866. Louisiana was 2 years later. Lincoln was not available for consultation.
 
skepticalbip said:
Sarpedon said:
And Lincoln let them back in the Union for the same reason. Boo!
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"Back in the Union"???

I thought that was the whole Northern state's excuse for the war - that the Southern states never actually left the Union, they were only in rebellion. If they never left then "Letting them back in the Union" makes no sense. Lincoln setting conditions for the Southern States to be allowed back in the Union is an admission that the Confederacy was an independent and separate nation.
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It was a formality which had to be observed. For the time being, the south was under military government. The House of Representatives had to accept Congressmen from the former Confederate States, which required the House's satisfaction with the elections.
 
Yes, Lincoln considered them back in the Union with his proclamation when it suited him, for the purpose of electoral votes. Congress considered them back in the union when it suited them, for the purpose of impeaching Johnson, or whatever it was. What of it? Why should I consider one pragamatic political move as being more valid than the other? So many people are obsessed about arguing about which imaginary construct is 'real.' You might say that Lincoln overstepped his authority, true, he did that a lot. The point is that after the proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction, the states were defacto returned to the union, as they were no longer considered hostile, and the laws were applied there. And thus, for my purposes, the things that I feel ought to have been done there to rectify the situation in the states prior to readmission were no longer possible.
 
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