For Not Giving Lincoln a Chance

OF THE TWO GREAT UPHEAVALS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, neither was necessary. The English surely would eventually have released the colonies, because they (the colonies) would have grown so large, population and economically, that independence was unavoidable. And the Civil War could have been avoided, if the southern states which made up the Confederacy had only given Abraham Lincoln a chance. They left the country when and because Lincoln was elected; they didn't even wait for him to become president, let alone give him a chance to announce his policy on slavery and state's rights. Ironically, his views on both would have been very acceptable to the south. He was opposed to neither. True, Lincoln did not like slavery, but he had no intention of abolishing it when he became president, and he accepted the principle that in the United States, the States control their own destinies. But breaking up the country through secession led to war, which led to the abolition of slavery and states rights. Similarly, at the end of the war, a southerner murdered Lincoln, out of anger and bitterness which many southerners felt towards Lincoln. But in so doing the south brought down upon itself the wrath of Andrew Johnson, the vindictive President from Tennessee, long twelve long years of "reconstruction", aka oppression. Lincoln would have been far more lenitent towards the south than Johnson. The loss of Lincoln set the tone for a hundred years of sectional and racial bitterness and hatred, tragically. Great leaders must be given a chance to lead. But its hard to know who the great leaders are, until they are gone.