Speeches have been given and books have been written on this topic. I can only scratch the surface here. But the crux of the matter can be summarized in four main points, which I will explain below.
A Civil War was unnecessary
Does anyone else find it odd that the United States is the only country ever to have had a war over the issue of slavery? Dozens of other countries in modern history have had legalized slavery, and each of them phased it out peacefully. I know, I’m saying that “other countries did it, so the US would have” and this is not good logic. I’m merely suggesting it could have been a *possibility*… yet instead, we had a war.
Of course, the thing that should really be recognized is that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. I think this is now the commonly accepted view in every book except grade school textbooks: supposedly the Civil War was fought to “keep the union together.” Well, this has some truth to it, but doesn’t it sound so positive, altruistic and benevolent? “Keep the union together.”
Let’s try to examine keeping the union together from the proper perspective.
The real reason for a war
Lincoln was a mercantilist. Mercantilism is a political/economic philosophy that incorrectly views trade as a zero-sum game and also tends toward having nationalistic sentiments. Consequently, mercantilists are typically in favor of “protectionist” policies that discourage international trade, which enables domestic producers to charge higher prices at the expense of consumers.
During the mid 19th Century, America’s economy was divided between manufacturing in the North and agriculture in the South. Additionally, Northern Republicans had enacted mercantilist protectionist policies that helped Northern business interests at the expense of Southerners. Desiring to trade freely with businesses in other countries that could supply them with tools and commodities they needed, they were inhibited by Northern-passed laws. As a result of this unjust economic and political treatment, they wished to secede from the United States.
Wartime casualties: civil rights
Northern newspapers were overwhelmingly in favor of Southern secession. They felt Lincoln and the other politicians of the day had overstepped their bounds, and that secession would lead both countries back toward their free roots.
For their opinions, thousands of US citizens were jailed and denied habeas corpus. The ACLU has freaked out about a couple hundred foreigners at Guantanamo Bay for the past couple of years; Lincoln did far worse.
Furthermore, there are dozens of written evidences that Union soldiers specifically targeted civilians in their Southern conquest. This was done under the direction of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and other Union leaders.
Goodbye to an inviolable right
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…
The fact that the United States was born in an act of secession from England points to the irrefutable fact that secession was seen by the Founding Fathers as an unalienable right no less important than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jefferson also said in his first inaugural address,
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated…
Lincoln’s Civil War forever crushed this fundamental right.
Conclusion
Whether Lincoln was the worst president or the second worst is up for grabs. Had he not been there to pave the way, I doubt Woodrow Wilson could have created the Federal Reserve or the income tax. I also doubt FDR’s New Deal would have ever taken place. So, it’s hard to say.
For more information on this topic, visit the Mises.org media page to hear a conference about secession. I highly recommend the discussions by Thomas DiLorenzo, Scott Boykin, and James Ostrowski. DiLorenzo, specifically, has written two very detailed books about Lincoln, which I also recommend.