I bet there would still be slavery issues.

I bet we wouldn’t have to hear that dumb saying “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

We’d be missing one of the best role models the world has ever had. He held the United States of America together in the most deadly war we’ve ever been in and rid the south of the plantation system which required slavery for production which was amoral and slow. He was a great believer in human rights and the dignity of all people. And he did this while his own life had deep sadness and he was challenged with depression. He’s my favorite hero.

Most likely there would be a United States of America and several smaller countruies clinging to the South and East of America..
Wipe the slavery issue from your mind. A huge number of people will rant & rave about States Rights and that the issue of slavery was unimportant and that slavery was dying out, etc.

Forget all of that.

It did not matter if Abraham Lincoln were elected President in 1860 or if some other man was elected President. The South was determined to Rebel. Especially Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stevens, and a handfull of others. They had been plotting Rebellion for Decades. As Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis channeled weapons & supplies into Southern arsenals, and made certain that Southerners were admitted to Westpoint & Anapolis in advance of Northern candidates..

The South had been pursuing a ruinious economic policy since its inception. Use of slave labor was but a symptom of a greater disease. The South failed to develope its resources, did not diversify its crops, made little effort to industrialize, by 1860 the South was deep in debt. By Rebelling, Declaring themselves a new nation, Jefferson Davis and others were hoping for huge loans & credit from England and France and Germany and others….

Where does Lincoln fit into this.

Abraham Lincoln said “NO !! THE UNION MUST BE PRESERVED.”

Millions of Americans did not care. They were willing to let the South go. ‘ Good riddance.’ America was exspanding West at the expense of the Natives and had no use for the South with the exception of the Missisippi River, New Orleans the port city… So America was willing to let the South go only Lincoln said “NO” and so if there had been some shlub such as Stephen Douglass in the White House in 1860 then there would be no America as we know it today (2008).
The Confederacy itself would likely have broken up on its own. Texas proved to be the true powerhouse along with New Orleans and so one could imagine a Federal Repubic of Texas stretching across the Gulf. The South Carolinian Confederacy consisting of those parts of Georgia & Alabama not seized by Texas, with Florida a toss up. One would like to think that Virginia and North Carolina would have abolished Slavery and rejoined the Union.

Peace………. // ———— O u O ————- \\