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"[Better to consider] the organization of actual government by the seven seceded states as an accomplished revolution - accomplished through the complicity of the late [Buchanan] administration - & letting that confederacy try its experiment."

- Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the United States Treasury, in a private letter to Alphonso Taft, April 28, 1861 (italics in original)

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The debate within the Lincoln administration largely came down to two options: conciliate the South, the better to persuade more states from seceding; or, stick to the policy set forth in Lincoln's Inaugural Address and fight to keep federal control over federal property, including the beleagured Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln eventually took the latter course. But apparently, there was a third option, held by Sec. Chase but never really discussed: let the South go, and hope that they come running back eventually.

At this point, the Confederacy was brand new and consisted of seven states: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Montgomery, Alabama was the capital. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were still more or less committed to the idea of the Union, although many of their sympathies certainly lay with the would-be nation forming in the Deep South. Chase believed, apparently, that fighting the Confederacy would further alienate the border states.

I know that doing nothing while the union fell apart went contrary to Lincoln's nature. But in my mind that's what makes it a point of divergence. Suppose Lincoln and his administration had been persuaded to "let the confederacy try its experiment" - how soon before war would erupt? Would the remaining border states have seceded? What happens to slavery?

If this POD has been tried before, somebody tell me please. I jusut read this quote from Chase today and have been thinking about it since.
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