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Comment by opo | Hacker News Reader

>...when the Northerners legislated their economy away the rebellion was somewhat predictable.

Lincoln didn't want slavery to extend into the new territories. That alone was enough for the slave holders in the south to plan to assassinate Lincoln on his way to Washington and when that failed, for them to try and leave the union. To placate them Lincoln even was willing to go so far as to support the Corwin amendment, but that wasn't enough for them - they wanted slavery to expand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_Amendment

>...the poor white trash type

You probably didn't intend it, but this really feels like an ethnic slur.

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As I understand it:

Lincoln was anti-slavery in the sense that he thought it was morally wrong, he just didn't see any way of ending it that was constitutional.

At the time, there was a balance of power between free and slave states. Ending that balance meant effectively the game was over, it was just going to take a while to play out. The people of the time understood the implications and acted based on their understanding.

>Lincoln was anti-slavery in the sense that he thought it was morally wrong, he just didn't see any way of ending it that was constitutional.

I think that is the general consensus of Lincoln's thoughts at the beginning of his administration.

>...Ending that balance meant effectively the game was over,

Well it is debatable that the "balance of power between free and slave states" had shifted because Lincoln had been elected.

>...The people of the time understood the implications and acted based on their understanding.

Slavery had existed in many other countries. As other countries have shown, just because slavery is prohibited, that doesn't mean you need to rebel against your country and cause hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

For further context on extra-territorial expansion of slavery, see also the non-political "filibuster" and review the Monroe Doctrine in light of the Congress of Vienna, Article XV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(military)

Visualisation of the transatlantic slave trade: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23582777

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