Random Thought – Civil War Election

The US Civil War started in 1861 as the Confederacy States left the Union of the United States. The war itself was fought to force the Confederacy to stay part of the Union. In fact the Union never recognized the Confederacy as any kind of separate legitimate government. In 1864, President Lincoln was up for re-election, running against George McClellan of New Jersey. None of the Confederacy states voted in the election and Lincoln won with 55% of the popular vote and 91% of the electoral vote. Here is the point...Why didn’t the southern states re-join the Union in 1964 and help elect McClellan who was seen as a better alternative to Lincoln (from the southern perspective). Than, after the election, they could just leave the Union again.

Comments

Dan Welch said…
Errr I'm pretty sure it wasn't 1964, Lincoln running around like a hippie thats entertaining. I don't know good point. Why shouldn't the south be a seperate country. I mean we are almost completely different from them anyway (other than florida). Their crazy religious the north isn't. They all hate jews you 2 are jews. We can spell, sorta. It would be really bad of course because then we wouldn't have anybody to fight in the army since like 60% of soldiers are from texas. there are certainly more republicans in the south too. Who gets california though?
lindy said…
Good point- this would have been sensible tho underhanded in a way that had not developed yet. They still purported to be honorable- duels and 50 paces and mint julep and all. It wouldn't have been gentlemanly.
And that's sort of what i was thinking about yesterday when we were talking about guerrilla warfare- it seems like as we progress the dirtier player always wins- fast forward far enough and devo was right. And what were you doing awake at 8:45am?? ohhhh, this must be on west coast time!
Anonymous said…
The fact that we have been at war since the inception of the U.S. for the greater majority (redundancy) of our history is interesting... But I also think we should note the nature of the "wars" themselves. It seems to me that wars at first were the result of more "social concerns" followed in time by wars that resulted from "political issues" and now "economic gains." But that is just my opinion and you may not agree with me, but that would just make you wrong.
lonnie

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