The news sometimes has surprises in store for us, and this time, it was a surprising statement from former President Donald Trump that caught the attention. At a campaign event in Newton, Iowa, Trump suggested that the American Civil War could have been avoided through negotiation, questioning the necessity of the fight to end slavery in the United States and believing that ‘Abraham Lincoln should have done more to prevent bloodshed.
He said: “So many mistakes were made. You know, I think it could have been negotiated, honestly. I think it could have been negotiated. All these people died. So many people died .”
The surprising remarks come a little more than a week before the Iowa caucuses, where Trump is well ahead in the polls against his closest rivals, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. .
The Civil War has become an unlikely topic of discussion on the Republican Party primary trail. More than a week before Trump’s remarks, Haley responded to a question about the cause of the Civil War without mentioning slavery, which was the driving force behind the war. She has since walked back her comments, repeatedly saying she thought it was self-evident.
Trump’s comments were not made in response to or in reference to Haley’s.
In reality, there were a series of efforts before the Civil War began to reach an agreement to save the Union. But the future of slavery in the South could not be settled by compromise, and the nation found itself at war with itself. Trump did not say how he could have avoided the conflict, which he called “so horrible but so fascinating.”
“It was, I don’t know, it was just different,” Trump said of the war. “I find it so…I’m so attracted to it.”
After describing the injuries inflicted on soldiers on the battlefield, Trump said, “There’s nothing good about it,” adding that the war was “tough on our country.”
He also suggested that Lincoln would not have the same historical fame “if he had bargained for it.”
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney sharply criticized Trump’s comments on social media, asking how Republicans who supported the former president can “defend this.”
“What part of the Civil War ‘could have been negotiated’? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union?” Cheney wrote. “Question for members of the Republican Party – the party of Lincoln – who supported Donald Trump: How can you defend that?”
Modern Republicans generally recognize Lincoln as a hero – a Republican hero – for his role in preserving the Union when the South sought separation rather than ending slavery.