Why didn't president Lincoln Stop the Civil War!!?

Question

Over 500,000,00 Men Lost their Lives in this Senseless War it is totally unexcusable!! how can you explain this insane Act of our own People killing each other like that!! what was Lincoln doing about this how could he let this Tradegy Happen.

Answer 1

and do what... allow the US to seperate... had lincoln done that both countries (United and Confederate) would have been destroyed by outside forces in no time..

Lincoln did the best that he could in the situation that he was given.

however, he then created a Group of Southern Democrats that have led to a group of people who now vote democrat for no reason other than family tradition, They don't follow issues or pay any attention,

They are conservatives that vote liberal... So I guess I can be mad a lincoln for that

Answer 2

There are several major flaws in your question.

Total casualty rate for the War Between the States was a little more than 600,000 combined, not 500,000,000 as you stated in your question. Of that 600,000 the majority died from sickness and disease, with less than 45% of the deaths actually attributed to combat.

Lincoln had no way of stopping the conflict. The move towards secession took root in the South in the mid-1800s, and once it got going there was absolutely nothing Lincoln or any other president could have done to stop it.

Lincoln did NOT accept the secession of the Southern states as has incorrectly been stated. He thought secession to be unconstitutional and thereby illegal, and as soon as the shooting started he put out a call for 75,000 volunteers to "help preserve the Union" and defeat the "rebels." This point - preservation of the Union - was his main reason for waging warfare until September 1862 when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. From that point on, the war because a war not to preserve the Union but to free the slaves.

There are many things that Lincoln was not responsible for in this conflict, but on the other hand he's not the "Great Emancipator" as people portray him. He suspended the writ of Habeus Corpus and imprisoned newspaper editors who published articles critical of his handling of the war (something for which he was later censored by Congress), keeping them imprisoned for years without so much as a hearing. He used the issue of slavery as a political tool to get public opinion back on his side; after all, if he was that gung-ho about freeing the slaves, why didn't he do it when the war first started? No, he was losing support for his war effort because for the first two years of the war the Confederacy was kicking the Union's butt, and some of the more radical newspapers in the North were calling for him to recognize the Confederacy and end the war. He didn't want to do this; he wanted to preserve the Union but knew that the public wasn't behind this idea anymore, so he chose the one subject that he knew no one in his right mind could object to and used it as a political tool to win back public support. Sure, emancipation needed to happen - it should have been included in the Constitution to begin with - but Lincoln didn't do it for the sake of the slaves. He did it for his own reasons.

The War Between The States was indeed a tragic event, but the seeds for the war were sown in 1787 when our Constitution was ratified without outlawing slavery. That, too, was not Lincoln's fault.

Answer 3

1) The combined casualty count of North and South was 618,222.

2) He didn't let it happen. He accepted the South Secession from the Union. Then the South attacked the Union...so union beat the snot out of the South and brought them back into the fold.

3) It was a culture war between agricultural and industrial societies that was going to happen one way or another.

4) Once the South proved to be the aggressor the only real solution for the survival of free colonies was a brutal win which would ensure the reformation of the Unites States that would be strong enough to withstand outside aggression. Left seperate and not allied the Union and Confederacy would have been easy prey for Europe.

Answer 4

I think you're somewhat confused. There were not ove 500 million deaths in the Civil War. There were, in fact, just over 3 million combatants, and approximately 620,000 deaths.

Disease was the biggest cause of death in the Civil War. It outnumbered battle wounds 2-1.

As for the rest of your "question" (which, IMO, reads far more like commentary), the Civil War was a great tragedy for both sides, but it was the nearly unavoidable consequence of the collision of states rights vs. federal rights which was not clearly delineated by the U.S. Constitution. The question about whether or not a state has the right to nullify acts of the Federal government and/or secede directly led to the Civil War conflict. Lincoln made every effort to bring about reconciliation, but you cannot rest full responsibility for the occurance of the Civil War upon his shoulders.

Answer 5

I know that it is tempting to blame Lincoln for the Civil War. How is it that even a president can "stop" a war? What does he do, pass an executive order to "put down your weapons"? It may be helpful to look at Abraham Lincoln as the captain of a boat that had to go through extremely rough waters, in order to come out the other side intact. Sure, a lesser leader may have folded and the boat may have split in two workable pieces, but clearly, as history demonstrates, it was not to be, and I for one think that the US benefitted TREMENDOUSLY from staying as one country.

Answer 6

1. The South Seceded because Lincoln was elected.

2. The South fired on Ft Sumter, so your question would be like Roosevelt not going to war after Pearl Harbor.

3. As in most wars, the Military thought they could win it easily.
Sort of like Iraq.

Answer 7

You sound awfully angry about a war that happened 150 years ago.

You idea that killing "our own people" is somehow worse than killing "other people" is a bit disturbing.

What do you think the current President of Iraq should be doing to avoid civil war there?

Answer 8

The wars intended to save the Union. Also, this war ended slavery. There was no way to stop this war.

Answer 9

The only way to stop a war in your favor is to win it, as I believe the North was trying.

Answer 10

I think Most people disagree with you. Lincoln was a great president. Learn your history son.