Originally posted by Double-J:
Depends on whether you lived in the North or the South. Some in the lower states still hold a grudge against the man.
Considering that the majority of the South was willing to secede just because Lincoln was elected, I would say Lincoln was in some ways a more polarizing (extraneous circumstances notwithstanding) President that Bush could ever hope to be.
I believe that there was considerably more to the seccession issue than Lincoln simply being elected, wasn't there?
And you're probably right. Back then it was North and South, today it's Red and Blue, so it quite possibly may have depended on whether or not I was a Northerner or a Southerner.
And knowing me, I might very well have taken the position that if a bunch of states want to get together and secede from the Union, why shouldn't they have the right to do so, and if they want slavery to be legal in Georgia or South Carolina, it's a matter of states rights and the federal government should butt out.
I
am in favor of less government rather than more, after all, which at one time was a cornerstone of Republicanism.
But, as I said, it's very hard to say or know for sure just how you would feel about events so long ago had you been there to experience them.
Maybe it's because of that old Henry Fonda movie with Lincoln walking five miles in the snow to repay a fifteen cent debt on time or something like that, but I just feel that the man was trustworthy.
