If Lincoln wasn't openly abolitionist or pro-slavery, why did the south resent him so much and want to leave the union when he won the election?

I've worded the title clumsily...what I mean is can we look back at a country such as the USA for eg. during 1916....and compare popular culture then with popular culture now? And thus predict what might be about to change in terms of fashion and mood?

I am curious to see what types of questions Gallup asked U.S. citizens in the late 1930s and early 1940s. What the answers are doesn't really matter to me. How would I go about accessing such information?

For example, one of my professors stated that despite the hundreds of years that Spain controlled and extracted resources from it's American colonies, they still ended up being an economic liability. Is this true?

Early United States history was dominated by topics such as federalism, slavery, public credit and the role of banks, internal improvements, or policy towards European affairs. The Founding Fathers were known to take a strong stance on some of these topics or others, which shaped the contemporary political era.

Did Aaron Burr ever take a public stance on any of these topics? If not, what were the actual political positions he campaigned on? Even if he really just wanted power, surely he had to have some political backers to rise as high as he did, who would presumably expect he would help drive their agenda.

Hi Historians. I'm looking for some sources that would suggest that the allied leaders - namely Haig, Rawlinson - were incompetent regarding their decisions and lacked coherent ideas concerning their plans. I do not agree that the British Army were 'lions led by donkeys' so to speak, but I need extracts that would suggest they were.

Alternatively, sources that may suggest they were in fact composed and well devised, as well as competent - would be equally as useful.

Thanks guys :)

I also posted this on r/history for a wider coverage.

Greece had an empire phase prior to the Roman Empire, why didn't this create a diaspora of Greek speakers across the Mediterranean? Is it due to the differences in administration of the empire?

I'm a provincial citizen living in London, Honorious has just written to our forum that we must garrison our own towns, as the legions are being recalled to face Alaric, what exactly changes after this happens?

Hello colleagues (some of you still my academic superiors),

I know we muddle around the topic of primary and secondary sources, but I myself am somewhat flip-flopping on where to classify a particular source.

I am currently writing my thesis, a half biography half post-Famine Irish cultural nationalism and the press, and I have a memoir written about my subject. Trouble is, the memoir was written by my subject's older brother, about my subject's life, and was published three years after his (the subjects) death.

I'm no longer feeling confident about how to classify this after flip-flopping so much. I know there are obvious definitions, but this one seems to be in a perfectly grey area.

So, what is your opinion?

Additional question: Is there any evidence of other republic-like systems outside Europe during this timeframe?

Background: My grandmother has told me that whenever her parents talked about WW1, her mother, who'd grown up up on a farm, would claim that things hadn't been so bad, while her father, who'd had to go door-to-door and ask for scraps, always ended the argument by saying "you don't know about that, because you always had food".

Much is being made of President-Elect Trump's decision to nominate (so far) three recently retired Generals to head cabinet departments. The American media has frequently pointed out limited restrictions on former Generals serving as Defense Secretary, and the "waiver" granted to George Marshall to do so. But how rare, otherwise, have Generals-as-cabinet-secretaries actually been in history? Is three unprecedented? And how good an analog are historical examples of Generals in the cabinet, giving that the career of a General today may not closely resemble that of his/her counterpart in other periods of US history.