I Am a Lincoln Republican

American Thinker ^ | 11-14-09 | Yervand Kochar

[radioone]

While interviewing people on the streets of L.A. and N.Y. for our documentary about the legacy of the Civil War, we came to the staggering realization of how many allegedly well-educated people assumed that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat fighting slave-owning Republicans in the South.

[Mr. K]

Martin Luther King was also a Republican

[Frenchtown Dan]

And the KKK was started by democrats !!

[JimWayne]

Klansman Robert Byrd is a Democrat and the reason Dims accept him must clearly be that he is from KKK. Hillary is also a White nationalist and this authoritative information came from Obama’s aides.

[squarebarb]

Great article. Bookmarking.

[Natural Law]

I am definitely NOT a Lincoln Republican. Aside from precipitating a civil war that resulted in the death and disfigurement of millions of American and throwing the constitution out the window when it suited him Lincoln ranks with FDR as being the president that did the most to diminish federalism, negate the 10 Amendment, and expand the power of the executive branch at the expense of the representative branches.

[GladesGuru]

Generations of publik skool graduates does tend to produce a dumbed down population which is dependent on gooberment for its survival.

All is as planned - planned by collectivists, that is.

[Le Chien Rouge]

I am a Goldwater Republican.....

[ALPAPilot]

There was an article this week about City University of New York. 90% of the students interviewed who were formerly in the NYC public school system could turn a fraction into a decimal.

[ALPAPilot]

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

T. Roosevelt and W. Wilson did infinitely for damage than Lincoln. "A New Birth of Freedom" by Harry Jaffa makes the case better than I ever could. Even so, if Lincoln harmed the Constitution he did it in defense of the much more important and fundamental Declaration of Independence.

[SharpRightTurn]

“I am definitely NOT a Lincoln Republican. Aside from precipitating a civil war that resulted in the death and disfigurement of millions of American and throwing the constitution out the window when it suited him Lincoln ranks with FDR as being the president that did the most to diminish federalism, negate the 10 Amendment, and expand the power of the executive branch at the expense of the representative branches.”

Well said. Lincoln was the worst president, followed by FDR and LBJ (though perhaps one of the latter may well be bumped by BHO).

[Rome2000]

Lincoln had no constituional authority to wage war to prevent the southern states from seceding

If Texas decided to secede tommorrow there still is no constitutional authority to prevent them

[altair]

You left out Woody Wilson who blessed us with the Federal Reserve and IRS.

[x]

Good article. Don't know about this, though:

Contrary to popular belief, the South was not a slave-owning monolith; only one in four Southern men had slaves (and in a rather eerie coincidence, one in four Southern men were killed in the war). Slavery was hurting poor white Southern men in a devastating way by rendering them unable to compete with the free labor of slaves.

Reason would lead one to think so, and Lincoln did see things that way. But reason was left far behind in 1860, and a lot of Southerners were willing to fight for fighting's sake, simply because it was "us" against "them."

[x]

Lincoln had no constituional authority to wage war to prevent the southern states from seceding

Certainly a lot of Americans believed at the time that states had no right to secede unilaterally.

To believe that the federal government had the right to act against unconstitutional secession was the next logical step.

[ALPAPilot]

Lincoln had a Constitutional Obligation in to enforce the laws of the country. The southern states had no constitutional or moral right to succeed.

[Rome2000]

I can show you in the Constitution where all rights not enumerated to the federal government are reserved to the states, but you can’t show me where it says it’s illegal to secede.

Pick up a copy and read it before spouting off about how what the south did was illegal

[LibertarianInExile]

"Certainly a lot of Americans believed at the time that states had no right to secede unilaterally. To believe that the federal government had the right to act against unconstitutional secession was the next logical step."

If you think that the beliefs of a bunch of people are all it takes to change the Constitution, you're on the wrong site. DU is looking for you. Might does not make right, and masses do not remake the language of the Constitution through belief. The Constitution does not speak to secession. It does reserve the rights not specifically granted to the federal government to the states or the people. That is the font from which American federalism springs, and if you believe that in instance x there is an exception, simply citing the fact that the government does it is not logically convincing. You're simply affirming the consequent. Liberals do this every day to justify unConstitutional action--"We're doing it, so it must be Constitutional."

And in fact, if Lincoln had not been elected and not proceeded to force union on unwilling states, it seems very likely Northeastern Republicans would have strongly agitated considered secession for their own states. They certainly blustered about it BEFORE the War of Northern Aggression (see http://blog.mises.org/archives/005576.asp).

[imfrmdixie]

Where does it state in the Constitution at the time of the War of Northern Aggression that the Southern states could not seceed from the United States? Key West, Florida, seceeded in 1982 and the residents there still consider themselves independent of the United States..even issuing passports that were used to legally travel outside the country. Please advise me of the article that specifically said there could be no secession.

[imfrmdixie]

Bless you for not using the words Civl War and using the correct term “War of Northern Aggression”. It was not a civil war. The South had become an independent nation when it was invaded by another country.