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One cannot help but wonder how Lincoln's abusive childhood and monumental bouts with depression cost this country more than we will ever know.

It begs the question how much more have emotional problems of elected "leaders" cost us in the past and how much MORE will they cost us in the present and future?

If you'd like to know the magnitude of our peril, look up "malignant narcissism."

Any of the current gang in Washington could serve as poster kids for that one.

Be afraid. BE VERY AFRAID!

‘Of all the big lies about the War Between the States, the biggest of all may be that it was necessary to end slavery. The truth is that many illustrious southerners, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, recognized that slavery had to come to an end.’

The author loses his crediblity with this.

The CSA’s Constitution codified Slavery. Jefferson Davis was positively outraged at Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation.

And Lee’s army rounded up anyone black and sent them South during both ‘invasions’ of the North.

Basically, by trying this, the author is recreating the ‘Lost Cause’ myth, updated to the year 2009.

I agree with you and with everything Chip Wood says in his writing. However, we in the South can never overcome the idea that has been put forth and continually reinforced over the years - that idea being that the War for Southern Independence was about slavery. Who can know what North American would be like today had the South succeeded. We can only guess.

In this era, every citizen of the United States has a right to be fearful of its government. Unfortunately some are too stupid and others pitiably ignorant to understand what is being visited upon them. May God have mercy on us.

No surprise here. The democrats have always hated Lincoln. I like this the best though:

But this raises the question, if it was necessary for the states to adopt the Constitution, why wouldn't it be legal for some of those states to rescind that vote, especially if they felt the contract had been broken?

I'm calling up my Visa card company today and telling them I'm done with the contract too. So sorry about the money I owe. Cheers!

The questions and the answers regarding the legality and nation impact of secession were simple ones for President Lincoln: Can a state simply vote itself out of the union of states called the United States whenever it so desires? If so, isn’t that a direct threat to the national existence and territorial integrity of the nation? Lincoln believed that if secession was allowed to stand, it would ultimately destroy the United States as a nation. It would turn us into a Europe with each state being an individual country. Many people agreed with him.

And, why did the Southern states secede? Was it because Lincoln threatened to abolish slavery in the South? No. It was because Lincoln believed slavery was morally wrong, and therefore should be limited to where it already existed. In other words, because he believed slavery was a moral wrong, he wanted the new states that would be formed out of the territories, to be “free” states - thus limiting slavery to the Southern states.

The Southern slave owners wanted slavery to spread to at least some of the new states for their system’s economic growth. If Lincoln were elected, they reasoned, he might stop this from happening and thus push the balance of power in Congress in favor of the “free” states. They saw this as a direct threat to their economic, political, and social way of life. Therefore, they seceeded.

My point? Lincoln did what he believed had to be done to rescue the nation from a very real and direct threat to it’s national existence. You can agree or disagree with him, but you must admit it was a major crisis for the country. He acted on what he believed to be the best recourse for protecting the country. If you believed secession were illegal and a threat to our country, you probably would have done what Lincoln felt he had no choice but to do. It was South Carolina that ultimately forced the issue into a shooting war at Ft. Sumpter.

“Of all the big lies about the War Between the States, the biggest of all may be that it was necessary to end slavery.”

This is the biggest canard southern apologists use to justify southern secession. The Civil War was not fought to end slavery and I don't recall ever reading that or having it taught to me in school. The Civil War had everything to do with slavery, but was not about freeing the slaves.

Slavery was a southern institution fully immersed in Southerners’ mythological views about their culture. Anything that threatened slavery's existence was viewed as an attack on the south and its way of life. The election of antislavery Lincoln was the final straw for the south and they seceded. The fact the slaves were freed was a good outcome, but had the Southerners decided to rejoin the Union in late 1861 slavery would not have been abolished.

If Lincoln is adored it is no more so than Washington, Jefferson, or Jackson. Washington's leadership helped create this country, Lincoln's leadership preserved it.

Lincoln suffered from bouts of “melancholy” and had no more an abusive childhood than any other man of his time. The fact that with so little formal education he could write a document like the Gettysburg address or his Second Inaugural tells more about the man than a focus on his childhood or bouts with depression.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.