Reckoning Quotes
Referring to the Serbian atrocities in Bosnia:
Lee had advised the Southern leadership to avoid secession and the war that would follow. However, the Southern leaders did not really believe that the remainder of the Nation would fight and take casualties to end the institution of slavery. While many would not, they misjudged the intensity of those who would, the moral power of the abolitionists and most Northern religious leaders. Nor did they understand the importance to most Northerners of preserving the Union. And they really had no comprehension of the industrial capability of the Northern free labor states or the importance of that in a long protracted war. Lee, more sophisticated than the other Southern leader, had a more realistic assessment, but thought that there was a chance that the South might have enough early success that the North would politically make the war untenable, but he realized the cost in men and material under the best of circumstances. Lee’s surrender came shortly afterward.
The President had been dealing with a series of crises—The Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the beginning of Vietnam.
