I saw an interview with the screenwriter yesterday…. it looks like an awesome movie.

[quote=spdrun]I’m bringing rotten tomatoes. Not because I expect the movie to be bad, but because “Honest Abe” was one of the worst things to happen to the US.

We should have let the South and Bible Belt go straight to Hell in 1861 — withdrawn all troops, relinquished all forts, and left them to f**k themselves. Slavery would have ended naturally due to mechanization, and this country would be much less politically divided right now.[/quote]

And the slaves naturally should wait, until mechanization freed them? Freed them to what?

Horseshit. “As happened in the South since the 1950s?” This increase in freedom did not happen on its own, it happened because the federal gov’t intervened. The Civil Rights movement in the South would have stalled and probably failed had it not been for federal intervention. How anyone could argue otherwise is utterly beyond comprehension.

Getting back to the topic on hand, I enjoyed Lincoln and was pleased that Doris Kearns Goodwin assisted with the screenplay. Daniel Day Lewis (once again unrecognizable) will probably win an Oscar for his nuanced performance. Can’t recommend the film highly enough.

It’s an interesting exercise in counterfactual history. The human cost of the war was so large, that it makes us wonder whether allowing slavery to persist a little longer would have been an acceptable trade off.

The Union could have said to the South: OK, secede, but I’m not buying your cotton, and I’m not selling you anything either. Would the south had declared war to open markets to its products? Probably not: easier to trade with Europe, Latin America, etc.

My guess is that before long: (1) the Union would have been restored, and (2) slavery would have been abolished in the southern states.

Latest research puts the war’s death toll at 750,000. Too high a cost was paid by a country of 31 million.

[quote=Diego Mamani]It’s an interesting exercise in counterfactual history. The human cost of the war was so large, that it makes us wonder whether allowing slavery to persist a little longer would have been an acceptable trade off.

The Union could have said to the South: OK, secede, but I’m not buying your cotton, and I’m not selling you anything either. Would the south had declared war to open markets to its products? Probably not: easier to trade with Europe, Latin America, etc.

My guess is that before long: (1) the Union would have been restored, and (2) slavery would have been abolished in the southern states.

Latest research puts the war’s death toll at 750,000. Too high a cost was paid by a country of 31 million.[/quote]

Except for the fact that Lincoln had no such option. He had to preserve the Union at all costs and when it became apparent that the Southern states were bent on secession, war was inevitable.

A common mistake, and one that clearly informs spdrun’s thinking, is that the Civil War was fought over slavery and thus slavery (versus abolition) was the primary driving force. It wasn’t. This was an inevitable collision between two cultures: the rapidly industrializing and modern North and the agrarian and antebellum South.

Slavery was a factor, but not the primary factor, thus the Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until 1863, well into the war.

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Except for the fact that Lincoln had no such option. He had to preserve the Union at all costs and when it became apparent that the Southern states were bent on secession, war was inevitable.

A common mistake, and one that clearly informs spdrun’s thinking, is that the Civil War was fought over slavery and thus slavery (versus abolition) was the primary driving force. It wasn’t. This was an inevitable collision between two cultures: the rapidly industrializing and modern North and the agrarian and antebellum South.

Slavery was a factor, but not the primary factor, thus the Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until 1863, well into the war.[/quote]

I think that’s an over-simplification. The conflict was centered on social/economic differences between the north and the south. But the primary difference, both socially and economically was slavery. The north was industrial. The south was agrarian, and integral to the southern economy was cheap slave labor. If not but for that slave labor, the war would not have happened. It was pretty much a done deal as soon as Lincoln was elected.

Just watched it this afternoon. Great movie!