Opinion:
“Now that's a good question. I realize this will be a somewhat controversial idea... but I think the US might have been better off, in the long run, if Lincoln had simply let the South walk away. Many of the country's worst problems -- racism, poverty, backwardness -- have been disproportionately centered in the South *since* the Civil War. Maybe a US consisting of the Northeast, Midwest, and West (but no South) would have reached even higher heights than the country we now know. But then I admit that I'm a liberal Northeastern elitist, so I would think that...”
Opinion:
“Abraham Lincoln believed it was a test of the union's strength. If the South seceded then any state could secede if it disagreed over an issue.
The Civil War answered many of the fundamental questions of the American experiment: free or slave, one or many, united or divided. But it did so at a tremendous cost.”