How would you have treated confederate leaders?

[gorkay]

Lincoln's plan for reconstruction, if it had been followed, was the right course. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

[gorkay]

To say that the Civil War was fought solely about slavery is simplistic. Granted, slavery was a big part of it, probably the biggest part, but not the only part.

It would have been interesting to see how a fair and impartial Supreme Court would have ruled on a case accusing one of the Confederate leaders of treason. Since there has never been anything in the Constitution denying a state the right to secede from the Union, it would have been a complicated one for the prosecution to prove.

I don't think the formation of the Confederate States of America was illegal or treasonous, just incredibly stupid. As was the war itself.

[gorkay]

Different historians have different ideas about what caused the Civil War, and the consensus among historians has shifted over the years.

Myself, I favor Mark Twain's thesis that it was all Sir Walter Scott's fault.

[gorkay]

Different historians have different ideas about what caused the Civil War, and the consensus among historians has shifted over the years.

Consensus amongst historians? An interesting theory, but, frankly, the idea that there are faeries at the bottom of my garden is more believable.

I meant "consensus" only in the most relative sense. A consensus among historians is not the same as a consensus among most other groups. Maybe what I should have said was that in recent years, the prevailing opinions about the Civil War have changed. But they are likely to change again, and again, in subsequent years.