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Top 5 presidential achievements


aubfaninga

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Oh and when I spoke about the thousands he imprisoned. That was not people from the confederacy.

The Confederacy had their own government, standing armies, sense of nationalism... I count them as a separate nation during the Civil War, and as such VIPs and POWs are to be taken.

The thousands I mentioned were all citizens of the Union, in Union territory. Most famously the politicians in Maryland, who were thrown in prison on Lincolns order based on his thought that they "might" secede. Unless Lincoln had access to that pre-crime center from Minority Report he jumped the gun on it. Incidentally, that was also what led to the supreme court (Taney) telling Lincoln his actions were unconstitutional and exceeded the power of his station. Which of course led to Lincolns real/perceived threat of imprisoning the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in retaliation.

So? Not sure what your point is.

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Lincoln.

Suspension of Habeas Corpus. throwing 15,000+ in prison with no trial, no proof, and no timeline for release.

Overriding the supreme court and threatening to throw them in prison if they went against his orders.

Military action on foreign peaceful ships (see: HMS trent affair)

greatly expanding the powers of the executive (to a near dictatorship level)

solidifying the use of conscription.

Could go on, there are few US Presidents who made more radical changes than Lincoln did during their tenure (or reign) lol

You left out preserving the Union. ;)/>

Ahhhhhhhh.....so there is a time when we must suspend the laws of the land to advance an agenda? That's where Obama learned it from....lol

"Advance an agenda"? Would that include preserving the "land" in question?

That's the big debate for most people. Contrary to popular opinion succession was not in the hearts of most southerners. It was pushed by the top few % of the southern population and then they used state pride and a new feeling of nationalism calling themselves the "true" Americans to rouse the lower and middle classes to fight.

Even with the huge burst of confederate pride and will to fight to start the war, it quickly waned once people saw how long and bloody the war was going to be. Logical scholarly articles are presented all the time debating whether or not Lincoln needed to stretch or break laws to the extent he did.

The North had more troops, more trade, more firepower. The only thing the South could call an advantage was playing the defense... and having the better generals (that point is usually conceded). Due to the ridiculed Anaconda plan the South was already being slowly choked to death and was going to lose either way, with or without Lincolns bold moves.

Absolutely correct. The decision to secede was made by the wealthy land (slave) owners and was not put to a public referendum in any Southern state. In fact there were large areas of Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas - primarily in the upland mountainous regions that wouldn't support huge plantations - that remained opposed to secession throughout the war. Many of these Southerners fought for the Union.

But I don't necessarily agree that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. It is certainly true the North had an overwhelming superiority but the North was also suffering from the unimaginably high casualties. There was strong resistance to continuing the war by the Democrats.

Had Sherman not captured Atlanta just before the 1864 election, Lincoln may very well have lost. A negotiated peace in that case was a real proposition.

The Republicans were running things in the Union though, the union democrats had been at best luke-warm to the idea from the get go, and 1) Sherman would have captured Atlanta without Lincoln taking the steps he did, Atlanta had been abandoned by the troops before Shermans arrival (some claims are made the confederates burned Atlanta themselves). The scorched earth policy Lincoln was cool with also didn't affect the outcome to the extent people think.2) As the war didn't push on long enough, the crops lost from Sherman weren't felt by the populace till the war was ended. I'll concede that taking the yielded crops the years prior made a large impact. But taking crops for consumption, and burning and salting the ground are two very different acts.

The only real chance the confederates had was hope that they could wait out the Union, holding out till the Union got tired of trying.... Which, might have happened had Lincoln not been re-elected

Using imagination the only chance the confederacy had would have been to take the advice of people like Gen. Cleburne and and Gen. Lee and end slavery, as both France and England has shown interest in siding with the confederacy but neither would have a nation still allowing slavery.

1) What? Are you referring to Lincoln's extra-constitutional acts? Of course it had no direct impact on military operations. If so, that would be a crazy thing to allege.

2) The reasons for Sherman's marches - aside from the obvious strategic values - was to demonstrate to the South the war was irrevocably lost and destroy the populace's moral. And Sherman had no idea how much longer the war would last.

And I am not aware of any literal "salting of the ground. I recently finished the Shelby trilogy and I don't recall him mentioning it. I assume that's meant to be rhetorical.

The South lost all any chance of foreign recognition after Antietam in '62 but I don't think their chances were very good to start with.

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1) It had little to no effect of the outcome of the war.... was the point.

2) A big reason for his march, according to himself (some stretch taken here) but also from some of his subordinates were the guerrillas. Sherman was constantly losing men to them, and after they fired a few and ran, they would go back to working their fields. Pissing Sherman off to the point he saw a reason to treat all confederates as the enemy, and not just soldiers. Same thing happened with Gen. Wild for the Union. Yet, they would not have done so without the OK of their superiors. And the "do as you see fit" approach from Union command hadn't been going on since end of '61... maybe beginning of '62, depending on which theater you look at.

We faced a lot of the same tactics in Iraq, but at no point were we ever given the OK to destroy anything and everything civilian that we wanted... and that was foreign land.

Shelby is awesome, I'd recommend reading McPherson as well as Nash.

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1) It had little to no effect of the outcome of the war.... was the point.

2) A big reason for his march, according to himself (some stretch taken here) but also from some of his subordinates were the guerrillas. Sherman was constantly losing men to them, and after they fired a few and ran, they would go back to working their fields. Pissing Sherman off to the point he saw a reason to treat all confederates as the enemy, and not just soldiers. Same thing happened with Gen. Wild for the Union. Yet, they would not have done so without the OK of their superiors. And the "do as you see fit" approach from Union command hadn't been going on since end of '61... maybe beginning of '62, depending on which theater you look at.

We faced a lot of the same tactics in Iraq, but at no point were we ever given the OK to destroy anything and everything civilian that we wanted... and that was foreign land.

Shelby is awesome, I'd recommend reading McPherson as well as Nash.

1) First that's hindsight. Secondly, there's no way to determine what effect it may or may not have had on the war. Who knows what might have been prevented, such as assassination attempts?

2) Sherman's march was a premeditated strategic tactic, not a tactical response. Interestingly, Stonewall Jackson recommended the exact same tactic to be used by the South when invading the North. Lee rejected it.

I have read pretty much all of McPherson, but not Nash.

Charles Dew is good for the politics leading up to the War. Bevin Alexander wrote an interesting book on how the South could have won.

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1. Sic Semper Tyrannis.... be nice if we had more people like that today(though less hair-triggered lol)

2. Again, it's all opinionated, the facts are that Lincoln made many drastic choices. Whether they were the right call or not will always be debated. I usually shade on the other side. both because it's hard for me to imagine giving the go ahead for such measures on home soil (whether rebelling or not, it was in their minds US territory), and also because most people side with Lincolns decisions and I love playing devil's advocate.

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