Reply #56: Don't mean to re-fight the Civil War (or War Between the States)

[coalition_unwilling]

with you, but . . .

No one counted the votes of the slaves in the South when answering the question of whether to "let the South go" or "try to maintain the Union."

Just because slim or even significant majorities of Southern whites may have wanted to secede to preserve plantation power does not mean that universal manhood suffrage would have produced majority votes for secession.

Lincoln, in 1860, campaigned explicitly on a campaign of keeping the Union together and restricting slavery to its current boundaries. So I'm not sure why Lincoln "should have let the South go."