"Let's roll!" He did, then we did, now they have.

I can assure you, many of us remember the Copperheads! So many, many parallels to today...here's a quote from a speech Vallandigham gave in March 1863:

The day after the Battle of Bull Run, by a vote unanimous save two, Congress declared that the sole purpose of the war should be the maintenance of the Constitution, restoration of the Union, and the enforcement of the laws; and when these objects were accomplished, the war should cease, without touching the domestic institutions, slavery included, in the Southern states.

That pledge was given, and under it an army of 600,000 men was at once raised; and it was repeated in every form till toward the close of the second session of Congress. Then the Abolition senators and representatives began first to demand a change in the policy of the administration, they began to proclaim at the war must be no longer for the Union and the Constitution but for the abolition of slavery in the Southern states.

Now, sir, I repeat it and defy contradiction, that not a soldier enlisted, out of the first 900,000, for any purpose than the restoration of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution. There was not one single officer, so far as his public declarations were concerned, whatever may have been the secret purposes of his heart, that did not openly declare that the moment this object was changed to the abolition of slavery, he would throw up his commission and resign.

Oh, how the president misled us into war...

This is even more amazing. Here's the Democratic Platform from 1864...it's utterly eerie...here's an excerpt

Resolved, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity of war-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view of an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.

Cut and frickin' run...the whole platform is basically complaints about Lincoln - no ideas, just plan, only how Lincoln's usurped power, disregarded prisoners of war (which was an intentional tactic, and they knew it), usurped power, or usurped power...

And then there's this:

Resolved, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army and sailors of our navy, who are and have been in the field and on the sea under the flag of our country, and, in the events of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protection, and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the republic have so nobly earned.

Yes, they supported the troops, which was why they wanted to bring them home.

Amazing...

Those are great quotes!

The noble and transformative aims of both wars could not could not be clearly stated at the beginning, for political reasons. In both cases the Copperheads both attacked those goals from the beginning, and also claimed that they were tacked on as a mere illegitimate afterthought!

And it is a rarely mentioned thing, that if Union blunders had not turned the Civil War into a prolonged and bloody affair, if it had ended quickly, the slaves might NOT have been freed...

"And it is a rarely mentioned thing, that if Union blunders had not turned the Civil War into a prolonged and bloody affair, if it had ended quickly, the slaves might NOT have been freed..."

To wit: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w051205&s=stuntz120605. Glenn Reynolds blogged this story last week.

...AND the Democrats thought Lincoln was a bumpkin unworthy of the office. Wow! It's like all those creepy parallels between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations.

Ethan, I saw that piece too, but didn't have time to blog it...It's very good, though I don't agree that the war's purpose changed, rather that it could come out into the open as the compromizers fell by the wayside.

And it made me think of another thing. Somebody (book title is "Strategy," British author I'm drawing a blank on) wrote that "lightning victories" are very very dangerous. The defeated don't accept them as fair defeats, and will come come back for bloody revenge. Pearl Harbor was an example, and also the Franco-Prussian War.

And Mike, FDR was derided as an undistinguished state governor, a silver-spoon prep-school type riding on the coat-tails of a famous family...

I'm trying to think about our own lightening wars...the Mexican War was pretty quick - in fact, lightening quick by the standards of the day - and its effects were lasting - we got Texas, New Mexico, California. Of course, one could argue that Texas's agitation, lasting for decades, made the war a culmination of a longer war.

And the Spanish-American War - that was a super-speedy one, and we held the Philippines until WWII...although, in that case kicking the Spanish out was pretty easy - suppressing the guerilla war took a couple more years. And in Cuba, we never planned to take possession of it (though we certainly flirted with it), so really the independence movement had been struggling for decades there...

Hmm...not sure if they fit the model or don't fit the model...

Watching CNN now and the polls are open in Iraq. Anderson Cooper is interviewing voters. History is being made and it is so thrilling to watch. I almost feel sorry for the Democrats who have become so petty and small minded that they cannot watch this and feel proud of what their country has helped bring about.