Is Ron Paul right on the Civil War and Lincoln?

Question

He said on Meet the Press that we could have found a peaceful solution to slavery and Lincoln was wrong to go to war.
Do you agree/dissagree?
Why?

Rick K:
Every other country got rid of slavery without war... why couldn't we have done it without costing America 600,000 lives.

rhsaunde:
You are wrong... Abe sent in the troops three months before fort sumter, it was the troops presence that caused fort sumter.

David R:
Perhaps you could explain that to all the slaves freed in Great Brittain without any bloodshed... and it was about States Rights, go to History 101 again and relearn it sir!

Conservative Emporer:
Well that was the most ignorant use of the caps lock key I've seen in my entire life.

Answer 1

the Civil War was not about slavery. it was about States' rights. to make there own laws.or state (sovereignty)government free from external control ,The principle that the state exercises absolute power over its territory, system of government, and population.

Answer 2

Ron Paul is right. The Civil War was fought because of states' rights, with slavery being a small part of that. Lincoln circumvented and blatantly violated the Constitution and the Bill of Rights at every turn leading up to and during the Civil War, most notably suspending the writ of habeas corpus. It's been reported that he had an arrest warrant taken out on the Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney because Taney criticized Abe for violating the Constitution, although the warrant was never served.

Yes, the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter first. But that fort was in South Carolina, the first state to secede (which was their Constitutional right to do so), so an argument could be made that they felt the U.S. federal government was illegally occupying the CSA. I firmly believe that had Lincoln not gone to war and allowed the CSA to run its course, slavery would have ended on its own just like it had everywhere else up to that point. I also don't believe that the CSA could've sustained itself and would have eventually rejoined the Union. The difference from how things are today from how I believe they would be had slavery and the CSA been permitted to run its course is that I don't believe we'd have the race issues, at least not at the same magnitude, that we have today, nor would we have the regional issues between the north and the south.

So, yes, when Ron Paul says that Lincoln violated the Constitution and another solution should have been determined, he is correct.

Answer 3

There are two questions here.

First, could we have found a peaceful solution to slavery? Second, was Lincoln wrong to go to war?

Answering the first question, anything is possible. Neither Ron Paul nor I can say for certain whether war was necessary.

In answer to the second, I do not believe it was wrong for Lincoln to go to war.

In my (humble) opinion, the Dred Scott decision, written by Justice Roger Taney, made the Civil War inevitable. Essentially, the decision made slavery in all new territories legal. This would cause a rapid decline in relative power for slavery opponents in the North and, eventually, would probably have led to legalized slavery in all the states of the union. Northerners would never have accepted this compromise.

Thus, either there would have been war or the United States would have legalized slavery in all fifty states. All of this occurred well before Lincoln was a candidate for President.

Answer 4

Take anything said by a presidential candidate with a HUGE rock of salt...
Lincoln did try peaceful negotionation. He PLEADED for the south not to suceceed, that he had no intentions abolishing slavery, but the States that became the CSA were hell-bent on sucession. Even then, the issue didn't need to be settled militarily, until the Federal base @ Ft Sumpter was attacked.
Once that had happened, Lincoln basically had no choice-failure to act would be tacit admission that sucession was okay & the Union would have disolved.

Now it must be noted that the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1862-well into the War, and it didn't end slavery in ANY Union state, only the Confederate States (where the Union had no power). Thus the Proclamation was symbolic only.

Also, countries that ended slavery AFTER the War between the States (notably Brazil) did so because they saw how destructive & expensive such a conflict could be.

This is yet another reason I cannot & will not support Ron Paul. His understanding of the world is simplistic (and you think W is bad) & his knowledge of history is flawed. I've seen his webpage. Every single one of his campaign points is a massive generalization, no specifics. Long on promise, short on detail.
I don't think the guy understands national politics any more that what it take to get him re-elected within his own district.

Answer 5

While we are re-debateing history and the civil war here, the thing I find is that with the Union victory came a stronger federal government. Over the years this stronger federal government has evolved into the monster we have today. Hence Ron Paul's platform. The framers of the constitution had one thing in mind - balance. Balance between the Federal government and the state governments. Balance between the popular majority and the electoral college. Balance between the Congress, the President, and the Courts.

What we have now is anything but Balance. Does anyone ever read the 9th and 10th amendments?

Answer 6

Before you suggest to other folks to relearn history, you might want to relearn it yourself. Under the original Constitution, Lincoln became President in March, not January.

Fort Sumter (as the name suggests) was a fort owned by the U.S. government located near Charleston. It was there long before the Civil War. All that Lincoln did was refuse to surrender it to the illegal government of South Carolina (illegal because they were in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution). The first shots fired were by the Confederates. Lincoln did not go to war. He just refused to surrender when the other side started it. In addition, the Constitution specifically authorizes the use of force to suppress domestic rebellions.

Finally, for all those who talk about state rights. Seven states attempted to leave the Union between the election and the inauguration of Lincoln. If it was not about the right to own slaves, what other plank of the Republican Platform was so offensive to cause this reaction. In addition, anybody who reads the speeches between 1830 to 1860 about state's rights will find an amazing similarity between the sayings about states rights in that time period and the writings of the anti-federalists in the late 1780s. The debate was had in the 1780s and the state's righters lost when the Constitution was ratified.

It might have been possible to find a peaceful solution if we had parliamentary supremacy like other countries had. In those countries, it took a simple majority at the national level to ban slavery. Instead, under the U.S. Constitution, there was no room for such legislative action. The rules of the Senate allowed the slave states to block any action (as did the rules for amending the Constitution). The Courts would block any unilateral action by the executive. Finally, the local government in the slave states were opposed to any compromise.

Answer 7

well it was around along time , so war wasn't that necessary, and the war wasn't fought just over slavery in fact that was just a very small side issue of the war.

I think there would have been a better way. Every other major country of the world was able to get rid of slavery without a Civil War. The Civil War wasn't fought over slavery anyway; the war was fought over unifying and making a strong centralized state. You could have paid for all the slaves and released them and there were proposals like that; that's the way the British did it. Every major country in the world got rid of slavery except us; it was not necessary and there were tariffs involved and many other reasons why the Civil War was fought. But if you read Lincoln carefully you'll realize that Lincoln was not the greatest opponent of slavery and if you don't look at that you are denying a very important part of our history."
-Ron Paul

Answer 8

Ron Paul is old enough to have been there. Slavery was going away anyway because machines were replacing slaves and doing a better job at less cost. The Civil War was over States Rights, verses a strong Federal Government. Slavery was a side issue. Listening to Ron Paul, he is for a weaker Federal Government, and more States rights..........I'm not sure about that......Slavery was not the issue, believe me, thousands and thousands of Northerners were not going south to free slaves.......

Answer 9

Don't think so. The Civil War was basically an economic war. The two sides needed each other to survive. A split in the union would have been deadly for both.

The South's economy was based on slave labor. Given the moral crime here, there is no compromise here either economically or morally.

The other nations you referred to merely changed the nature of slavery from imprisonment to another form of economic exploitation. In fact, World War I was partly a fight for colonial possession of this sort.

Ron Paul's suggestion of a compromise on slavery is morally reprehensible.

Ron Paul is no Abe Lincoln, I can tell you that.

Answer 10

The Civil War is not about slavery, it was about state's rights versus the Federal government powers over the states. Not until the Civil War was well underway that Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address about slavery in 1863. The Civil war started in 1861.

I found a lot of people are ignorant of this fact.

Answer 11

It would be amazing to see what even a little reading of history would do to these answers.

Representative Dr. Ron Paul is absolutely correct.

It is correct that most other Western countries ended slavery without violence and certainly not wars.

President Lincoln was committed to maintaining the Union and during his initial campaign for president he ensured the country that he would retain federal properties even if the States seceded. This included not only the 4 federal properties in Charleston harbor (including Fort Sumter) but the other properties such as the forts along the gulf of Mexico and mints such as the one in New Orleans.

After his election the States began to secede because his election represented federal interference in the Constitutionally protected rights of the States. The first shots of the War was not the firing on Fort Sumter but the firing on the unarmed ship “Star of the West” when President Buchanan tried to supply food to Fort Sumter.

President Lincoln was told by General Winfield Scott that it would take no less than 20,000 union troops to retain Fort Sumter and that such troops would take many months to acquire and train and move to the Fort and that it was better to let it go. President Lincoln listened to other civilians in his cabinet and decided for the troops (under manned and under supplied) at Fort Sumter to hold out. This occurred when the commander at Fort Sumter began an abandoning of Fort Sumter by moving the troops and civilians across the bay to another installation. Then under of cover of darkness he reinstalled his troops. South Carolina had already related to President Buchanan that supplying Fort Sumter would be considered an act of war. Then they made the same official report to the commander of Fort Sumter if he didn’t pull his troops out of the Fort. South Carolina would considered Fort Sumter as South Carolina property after secession and Lincoln knew this. If President Lincoln hadn’t forced the issue the war would not have begun at that point.


None of this had anything had anything to do with slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1863 and in fact freed no slaves. Freeing the slaves didn't occur until the completing of the war and the 13th Amendment.

Representative Dr. Ron Paul was correct in his assessment of Lincoln. He could have went on to state that President Lincoln not only could have allowed slave freedom without a war he could have also not caused the war to happen by ‘not’ invading the South. Further, Lincoln ran rough-shod over the Constitution and in effect destroying the Founders Constitution during the Union instigated American War of the 1860s which, by the way, was not a civil war. Among other things, Lincoln removed Habeas Corpus (something he is expressly forbidden from doing in the Constitution,) placed Northern politicians in prison for speaking against the war (something the first Amendment forbids him from doing), invaded a foreign country without a declaration of war (ala George Bush).

It was Lincoln’s plans for reconstruction (instituted after his death) which provided for the 14th Amendment to be applied (1868)outside of Constitutional requirements for ratification (refer to the case of Texas v. White [1869] which justifies this action as an act of conquest not as meeting constitutional requirements). Before the American War of the 1860s our country was referred to as “these United States” and after that war it has become “The United States.”

All Representative Dr. Ron Paul wants to do is to return our country to the Constitution of our Founders, that is, that the federal government could only do those things for which it has been delegated powers. Simply read Article I, Section 8, Clauses 1 through 18, and you will see what Dr. Paul is talking about.