Donald Trump told a jam-packed crowd he thinks the US Civil War could have been solved through negotiation and that without it we wouldn’t know who Abraham Lincoln was.
Trump made the remarks Saturday—on the third anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters—during a rally at the DMAAC Newton Campus about 30 minutes east of Des Moines.
“There was something I think could have been negotiated to be honest with you; I think you could have negotiated that,” Trump said before detailing on how deadly the conflict was.
Trump then segued into talking about Lincoln, who is credited with saving the Union and ending chattel slavery in America. Lincoln was the 16th US president and the first Republican president, and the reason the Republican Party refers to itself as “the party of Lincoln.”
“Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was; he would have been president but he wouldn’t have been the Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said.
“That would have been OK; it would have been a thing—I know it very well, I know the whole process that they went through and they just couldn’t get along and that would have been something they could have negotiated and they wouldn’t have had that problem,” he continued.
The cause of the US Civil War was Southern states’ refusal to end the practice of slavery and seceding from the Union.
Before the Southern states seceded, there had been attempts to negotiate peace, including the Crittenden Compromise, which would have allowed slavery to continue to be practiced in the South. The proposal had supporters but died in committee after it was rejected by Republican US senators, including Iowa’s James Grimes.
Trump also suggested building a dome over America to protect it.
“You know those domes? They are starting to work. I didn’t like it when Ronald Reagen suggested it because we didn’t have the technology, but we do have the technology now,” Trump said. “We’re going to build a giant dome over our country to protect us from hostile sources.
“That’s a great thing and it’s all going to be made in the United States. That’s something that I consider to be productive.”
Trump asked the crowd if they liked that idea and a few people said “yeah” and clapped. He then said the dome is a better idea than paying other countries to not attack America.
“Isn’t that better than giving other countries billions of dollars? We’re giving billions of dollars to other countries so they can build a dome, but we don’t have a dome ourselves,” Trump said. “We’re going to have the greatest dome ever.”
