What if Lincoln decides to wait until the North is ready for war?

Virginia had voted to stay in the Union on April 4th 1861.

Jubal A. Early, the delegate from Franklin County who is a staunch Unionist, has openly ridiculed the protesters, claiming that they wish to subvert the national government. "The enthusiasm for secession is short sighted, and likely to lead to war," he said.

The representative of Staunton, John Baldwin, a lawyer and a slave owner, challenged anyone to deny that the national government had always supported Southern property rights, including slaves. "The Lincoln administration does not represent an assault on Southern liberties," he argued, "and even if it did, the U.S. Constitution protected them." He compared Virginia to a lighthouse that could withstand "the breasting and surging waves of Northern fanaticism and of Southern violence."

When the vote was held today, the result was 90 to 45 against secession.

Whig Party member John Janney exulted after the vote, "The secessionists are now without the slightest hope of success!"

http://www.7score10years.com/index....ginia-convention-votes-to-stay-with-the-union

That changed after Lincoln quickly made clear he wasn't going to give diplomacy a chance with the leaders of the states that left, he was going to war with them and at the same time he also tried to make Virginia mobilize to send troops to help the war effort against the southern states that left the Union. That led to a second vote with Virginia leaving the Union.

What if Lincoln decides to engage in a military build up in Northern states to prepare for conflict while biding his time trying to show he is reasonable and wants peace by discussing matters with Southerns that left, while at the same time successfully painting the Southern states that left as the unreasonable and belligerent ones.

At the same time Lincoln decides to go down to Richmond twice in person in the Summer and then Fall of 1861 and meets with Virginia leaders and courts them that he has been acting reasonable trying to discuss the matter and these Southern states are being unreasonable and belligerent and there might be no option left to preserve the Union other then occupying them.

He would of course tell the Virginia leaders that if you do not wish to send troops to help I will fully accept your choice. Could Lincoln have been able to keep Virginia in the Union while building up his forces and planning a military campaign for mid 1862 or 1863 against the Southern states?
 
So Lincoln effectively recognizes secession, the loss of key federal positions, and such until he can actually field an army of his own? Getting the needed arms will take quite a bit of time. That won't go over well in the north.
 
So Lincoln effectively recognizes secession, the loss of key federal positions, and such until he can actually field an army of his own? Getting the needed arms will take quite a bit of time. That won't go over well in the north.

His talks would be about them returning to the Union not recognizing them leaving. It would be talks that he would know would go nowhere, but would make him look like the reasonable one and the southern states who left as the belligerent and unreasonable ones.

Ignore the loss of federal positions for a second and remember that once they left the Union Virginia was the center of gravity of the CSA war effort. With the North preparing for war and Virginia not preparing for war even if Lincoln decides to attack in mid 1862 and Virginia does in fact leave the Union the North would be in a much better military position and the South in a much worse one for a land war. The North would have enough troops already mobilized and trained to be able to occupy most of Northern Virginia and some of central Virginia before Virginia can even start to mobilize for war. In that case I see the war ending well before Lincoln's first term is up.

Keep in mind I have the greatest respect for Lincoln, but this is a question of if it would have been better to wait to prepare for the war while VA is still in the Union. The CSA really couldn't effectively prepare for a war while Virginia was still in the Union as Virginia had the officer corps.

Obviously, the ultimate coup for Lincoln and the United States would be Lincoln managing to personally convince enough Virginia leaders in the Summer and Fall of 1861 that he has been reasonable and tried to talk to the sucessionists to restore the Union, but everything else has failed so I have to occupy them and Virginia leaders deciding to stay in the Union while he does so.

I think it could have happened, Virginia was by far the most nationalistic of the Southern states having so many Founding Fathers and Presidents in living memory at the time, the big negative of course is it would have delayed the end of slavery for perhaps a decade or at most two, but slavery still would have ended in the 19th century in the U.S. only without the same level of hate, anger, and violence between blacks and whites that there was in the South during and after Reconstruction. Blacks would still be second class citizens in the post slavery South. But, there would be far less hate of them on the part of whites in the South and no jackasses is white hoods going around terrorizing the black population.
 
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Except that meeting the rebel representatives would be acknowledging them as legitimate, among other concerns.

If you want the war to start later, the burden of not starting the war rests on those who fired on Fort Sumter on the 12th and expected anything other than a response in kind.

This isn't a moral judgment, this is a matter of how the US was pretty unambiguously attacked by those people - as those who were actually anti-secession and not "unionist until they donned grey" like Early recognized.
 
His talks would be about them returning to the Union not recognizing them leaving. It would be talks that he would know would go nowhere, but would make him look like the reasonable one and the southern states who left as the belligerent and unreasonable ones.

What would be the point of asking the Confederate States to rejoin the Union at that point? They up and left as soon as Lincoln was elected, without making demands or waiting until he actually did something. I agree that Virginia was forced to pick a side, but if there was a compromise the other Confederate states would have accepted before the war, they would have made those demands before they seceded.
 

Japhy

Banned
That changed after Lincoln quickly made clear he wasn't going to give diplomacy a chance with the leaders of the states that left, he was going to war with them and at the same time he also tried to make Virginia mobilize to send troops to help the war effort against the southern states that left the Union. That led to a second vote with Virginia leaving the Union.

The entire premise here is flawed in that (1) Lincoln did attempt diplomacy and (2) It completely ignores the critical event that led to Lincoln calling for troops, that is, the assault by rebels against a certain US military position in a certain harbor.
 
This isunder the assumption that Virginia has not left the union yet nor Tennesee or north Carolina which had seceded in real life after fort sumter because of Lincoln's move to order federal troops to restore order in the deep southern states? Correct? And what is being said is: That if Lincoln had not called up troops in expediency but waited and tried to convince the delegates of the above states (Virginia,Tennesee, and North Carolina) by waiting long enough and readying for military movements slower to stay within the union before further crisis avails? That's what I thought, but is that the only thing stopping them, who's to say they would be convinced at all but just instead secede outright later? Please someone explain this to me. Thank you.
 
Once violence became inevitable, people were forced to pick sides.

Even if Lincoln doesn't ask the Upper South to provide troops, and raises forces in the northern states exclusively, the Upper South will know that Lincoln intends to invade the rebel states and will have to march through them in order to do that.

The areas of the Upper South dominated by a slave economy will go for the Confederacy. The areas not dominated by the slave economy would prefer to fight for the Union - just as in OTL.

I am not able to imagine a situation where Lincoln is able to build an army in the north, yet keep the Upper South in the union any longer than they remained IOTL.

Once blood was shed, Lincoln had to respond in some way. If he didn't, he would risk losing his own legitimacy. Any steps Lincoln must take would be provocative to the slavepower of the Upper South.

A POD you may want to consider is not Fort Sumter, but whether Lincoln's original plan was used. Lincoln meant to abandon Fort Sumter, which he knew was extremely vulnerable, and instead make his stand at a fort in Florida (I can't remember its name, but it was near the panhandle). This fort could not be as easily stormed, so Lincoln had a chance to keep his legal and moral position and yet know that the South couldn't take it. That might have prevented violence and allowed him more time for diplomacy. Unfortunately, I can't remember that fort's name and location.
 
It would be interesting if virginia, nc and tn had been allowed to be 'neutral', in this case staying in the union, but refusing to allow troops from either side march through their territory. It would make life much tougher for bothe the csa, less population and much less industry, AND the Union, as they have to conduct amphibious landings to carry the war south.

Mind you, i dont see lincoln agreeing to this, but it would be fun seeing a tl that fully explored this.
 
Also the trans-Missisipi and the western theater would have even greater importance, what with closing it off by advancing down the Missouri and western side of the Missisipi river and from there staging over-land campaigns east in conjunction of course with amphibious movements against strategic coastal areas: savannah, mobile, Texas gulf coast, new Orleans , charleston and Jacksonville-Pensacola florida.
 
It would be interesting if virginia, nc and tn had been allowed to be 'neutral', in this case staying in the union, but refusing to allow troops from either side march through their territory. It would make life much tougher for bothe the csa, less population and much less industry, AND the Union, as they have to conduct amphibious landings to carry the war south.

Mind you, i dont see lincoln agreeing to this, but it would be fun seeing a tl that fully explored this.

Tennessee's governor was very much trying to drag the state into the CSA, so I don't think it being 'neutral" is going to happen even if ASBs make Lincoln accept it.
 
Virginia had voted to stay in the Union on April 4th 1861.

Virginia had also declared, by a resolution of the legislature, that if the slavery controversies were not resolved on terms acceptable to the South, Virginia would join the Confederacy.

(Not in those words, but de facto.)

The Upper South was full of "conditional Unionists". They were men who wanted to avoid secession (unlike the Fire-Eaters of the Deep South), but nonetheless took the Southern position on slavery-related issues. They hoped and believed that some "compromise" on the slavery issues would induce the Deep South states to rescind their declarations of secession.

This was a two-fold delusion. First, the "compromise" which the Upper South men wanted was utterly unacceptable to the North, and would have required Lincoln and the Republicans to abandon major campaign pledges. The Upper South "conditional Unionists", like nearly all pro-slavery men, assumed the complete rightness of the pro-slavery position and thought that only a few "abolition fanatics" could possibly disagree.

Second, the Fire-Eaters were in control of the nascent Confederacy, and not even abject surrender on all slavery issues by the Republicans would get them to rescind secession.

Sooner or later, it would become undeniable that for the Deep South, secession was irrevocable, and the illusion of compromise re-union would be exploded.

The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the point at which that happened. It committed the CSA to war against the US. It also forced Lincoln to state what he had tacitly maintained all along - that he would use force to sustain Federal authority in all of the U.S., regardless of what any state said or did. But even before Lincoln's proclamation of a state of rebellion and call for troops, secession fever swept through the Upper South in the wake of the bombardment. Pro-Confederate crowds jammed the streets of Richmond, for instance.


That changed after Lincoln quickly made clear he wasn't going to give diplomacy a chance with the leaders of the states that left,

What diplomacy? The Confederates demanded immediate recognition of their indepedence, which Lincoln could not grant under any circumstances.

...he was going to war with them...

No, he acknowledged that the rebels were already making war on the U.S.

and at the same time he also tried to make Virginia mobilize to send troops...

He called on all states of the Union to send troops to suppress the rebellion.

What if Lincoln decides to engage in a military build up in Northern states to prepare for conflict while biding his time trying to show he is reasonable and wants peace by discussing matters with Southerns that left

The only matter which the Confederates wanted to discuss was recognition of independence. They would not even meet with Lincoln except as emissaries of an independent state.

The only reason for "a military build up in Northern states" would be for suppression of the Southern rebellion.

There is a pretty obvious impossibility here.

Incidentally, "waiting until the North is ready for war" means "waiting until the South is ready for war", too. The U.S. had the standing Army and Navy, with a supporting network of bureaus, camps, arsenals, and dockyards; the CSA had nothing. Why wait for the CSA to catch up?

Also - it was believed, with some reason, that a lot of people in the South were not pro-secession and would desert the Confederacy as soon as U.S. soldiers were there to protect them from the Fire-Eaters. (It was already well-known that in the South, having the wrong opinions could get one horse-whipped, tar-and-feathered, or lynched.) The longer the U.S. waited to act, the stronger would be the CSA's hold on its inhabitants.
 
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