Help me understand Abe Lincoln? Did he have the right ideas?

[HealthyPerson]

He didn't say slavery should be abolished..............
He said slavery should remain legal in its original colonies, but not spread further to newly-founded colonies.

Now if someone said that today, I would punch them in the face.
But: He lived in a time where maybe 50% of the nation was pro-slavery, much unlike today.
Does that make it ok to have an opinion like that?
The fact that being pro-slavery was popular makes it ok to say it should remain legal?

Anyhow.........He eventually did the right thing; signed the emancipation proclamation outlawing slavery.
So I wonder, what changed his mind?
Mabe his pro-slavery talk was just something he said so he could get elecetd?

Also: What was the reason for the civil war?
According to Lincoln, it wasn't slavery. It was to perserve the union.
You know something; a lot of people died in the civil war; like 500,000! It was like the most fatal war other than the world wars. So what would be the consequences of the south seceding? If we saved 500,000 lives and just let the south secede.....how different would the world be today?
Why is the thought of the south seceding so bad?


Now what sparked the civil war wasn't the North.....
It was the south who fired the first shot aganist Ft. Sumter.
Was the north forced to fight? Was this an act of terrorism from the south on the north? I thought the south was trying to secede; escape; leave; vamooos; get out. So why'd they attack ft. sumter? Did they think attacking them would change their minds and let them secede?


And another thing:
Before Lincoln, the government was funded by federal consumption tax, correct? Lincoln signed our first temporary income tax, in order to fund the civil war.
Somewhere down the line with grover cleveland, woodrow wilson & william taft, came the 16th amendment where we adopted income tax and abandoned sales tax. When did we stop using federal sales tax?
Is that pretty much what happened? why? Sales tax is not regressive, it's fair. Because it's the rich who spend the most............sales tax is fair because you have control over how much you buy to some degree. You have no control at all over how much you earn. Income tax penalizes productivity.

Your thoughts?


Alunatic: I like your answer.
You're not a lunatic lol.

 

[Max50]

If you are going to study Abe you first have to remove yourself from the 21st century way of thinking.
You need to understand context of what he was saying.

The Civil War was about states that wanted to go off on their own and not have a federal government.

My thought is you need to read more history and don't look at Abe through the eyes of someone who is using today's moral frame work and political correctness.

 

[ALunaticFriend]

He was trying to stop the civil war. If you limit slavery to only those states. He knew eventually you would have a super majority of states that did not rely upon slavery. And in time the Amendment would come without war. He wrote that without the percentage of staes backing slavery it would go away.

 

[Max50]

If you are going to study Abe you first have to remove yourself from the 21st century way of thinking.
You need to understand context of what he was saying.

The Civil War was about states that wanted to go off on their own and not have a federal government.

My thought is you need to read more history and don't look at Abe through the eyes of someone who is using today's moral frame work and political correctness.

 

[brian]

I think he was trying to keep the Union together. Talk of abolishing slavery led to the Civil War. Slavery was a bone of contention from the time the Constitution was written. It clearly violated the Constitution but politically was very tricky. It took the US over 70 years to abolish it, which was too long, and honor the Constitution..