Batman- The question isn’t that slavery wasn’t a stain on our land, but how to go about ending it. The war against southern independence resulted in some 600,000 deaths, many of them civilian, and large scale destruction of the South along with military occupation. Perhaps you think it was worth this cost, but I don’t.

And I do believe that Dresden and Hiroshima were war crimes directed against largely civilian populations. But it can be argued that Japan and Germany declared war on us before we went to war on them, and in the widespread horrors of WWII, Dresden and Hiroshima are only chapters.

Lincoln’s pretext for attacking the southern confederacy was South Carolina’s attempt to reclaim Fort Sumpter in Charleston Bay. Since South Carolina had democratically seceded from the USA, and the Fort was part of South Carolina, they had a perfect right to take it. It was Lincoln who sent military forces into Virginia in the first Battle of Bull Run. Lincoln was the aggressor, the Confederacy simply defending their homeland.

My main point as previously stated is that Lincoln’s administration laid the foundation for a general weakening of the federal principal that our country was founded upon. We live with the consequences today. If you are happy with the welfare-warfare state that America has become, then Lincoln is a natural hero to you. If you are unhappy with what America has become, then you should understand the role that the Lincoln Administation played in moving us in this direction.