Posted on 02/12/2011 6:06:39 AM PST by Notary Sojac
Thank you for that post. That corrects the comments on Atlanta, and shows that Sherman continued his war upon the citizens of the South.
Incidentally, I did some research several years ago which showed that if the Atlanta campaign is taken as a whole, it was the costliest aggregate battle of the war.
600,000+ dead.
10th Amendment de facto repealed.
A centralized, oppressive federal government.
A marxist president trying to turn America into a European socialist state.
That’s Lincoln’s legacy.
A fair point. Had I been President in 1861, I would have let the South secede, and thereafter treated it as a foreign country.
I would have done everything possible to encourage "regime change" from within the South, peaceful if possible, not if not.
Certainly the raw material was there for the making....
They are only contridictions if you take his quotes totally out of context to set up straw man arguments.
One can also make the argument that Lincoln did a number of things which were unconstitutional. I can respect that argument.
But one can't make a valid argument on a site called "Free Republic" that slavery is acceptable or that its continuance should have been tolerated.
Over 100,000 slaves joined the Union army and fought bravely. They didn't need to revolt with pitchforks and axes like in the past. They were issued muskets and cannon.
Don’t you know the south was planning to do away with slavery...
Just as soon as they figured out how to do away with all the slaves.....
Just as soon as they figured out how to do away with all the slaves....
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Didn’t Monroe have that solved, by offering FREE PASSAGE to the homeland and even had a country for them, Liberia, with the Capital being Monrovia (eventually).
Apparently the greater majority figured they had it ‘better’ here.
Of course I am sure the Irish, Italian etc immigrants would have felt the same way if offered ONE WAY passage to a ‘new world’.
“...make a valid argument on a site called “Free Republic” that slavery is acceptable...”
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“Is” acceptable or “was” acceptable?
“Acceptable”?
Acceptable to whom?
The federal government?
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“...its continuance should have been tolerated...”
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Tolerated?
Tolerated by whom?
People, and the governments they create, “tolerate” a lot of things; and lots of things change with time.
((What is “moral”? What is “legal”? What is “acceptable”? What is “tolerated”?))
Take a snapshot of what people “tolerate” and “accept” at one point in time
and compare it to a snapshot of “toleration” and “acceptance” at another point in time
then attempt to understand the morality and character of those in the snapshot.
You can do this over and over again all through out the history of man.
Lincoln did with cannon and gun what he could never have accomplished through legislation.
He personally seized upon an opportunity to force his personal view of what was “moral” and “acceptable” to end a “legal” practice,
and he did so at the cost of 600,000 lives.
War is hell, ain’t it?
http://www.civilwarhome.com/atlantaevacuation.htm
Thanks for providing that source material link regarding the evacuation of Atlanta. Reading the written exchanges between Gen. Sherman USA and Gen. Hood CSA as well as the mayor of the city, provides a much more accurate picture than relying on whatever the local newsrags had to say.
Sherman lays some good wood on General Hood, the "Confederacy" and the Atlanta mayor Calhoun for their hypocracy regarding civilians. From their hyperbolic repsonses you can tell they know it and aren't happy about it either.
I sought to satisfy my curiosity since two opponents made the same claim about the other side. My threadbare history taught me that Sherman had set the torch to Atlanta so I wanted to verify claims that Hood had done so as well.
Most of the references I discovered made much of the more infamous Sherman burning, but several did acknowledge that Hood set fires on his way out of town.
There are some who wish to apply some sort of relativism here, I suppose in order to make some sort of political hay regarding the mutual actions of combatants. I reject those comparisons. Sherman said, “War is hell”. Don’t hide behind the citizenry and shoot at me and then complain when civilians get shot.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY, SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, AND NORTH GEORGIA (THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN EXCEPTED), FROM MAY 1, 1864, TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1864.--#21
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME XXXIX/2 [S# 78]
WASHINGTON, September 28, 1864.
Major-General SHERMAN, Atlanta, Ga.:
GENERAL: Your communications of the 20th in regard to the removal of families from Atlanta and the exchange of prisoners, and also the official report of your campaign, are just received. I have not had time as yet to examine your report. The course which you have pursued in removing rebel families from Atlanta and in the exchange of prisoners is fully approved by the War Department. Not only are you justified by the laws and usages of war in removing these people, but I think it was your duty to your own army to do so. Moreover, I am fully of opinion that the nature of your position, the character of the war, the conduct of the enemy, and especially of non-combatants and women of the territory which we have heretofore conquered and occupied, will justify you in gathering up all the forage and provisions which your army may require both for a siege of Atlanta and for your supply in your march farther into the enemy's country. Let the disloyal families of the country thus stripped go to their husbands, fathers, and natural protectors in the rebel ranks. We have tried three years of conciliation and kindness without any reciprocation. On the contrary, those thus treated have acted as spies and guerrillas in our rear and within our lines. The safety of our armies and a proper regard for the lives of our soldiers require that we apply to our inexorable foes the severe rules of war. We certainly are not required to treat the so-called non-combatants and rebels better than they themselves treat each other. Even here in Virginia, within fifty miles of Washington, they strip their own families of provisions, leaving them as our army advances to be fed by us or to starve within our lines. We have fed this class of people long enough. Let them go with their husbands and fathers in the rebel ranks, and if they won't go we must send them to their friends and natural protectors. I would destroy every mill and factory within my reach which I did not want for my own use. This the rebels have done, not only in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but also in Virginia and other rebel States, when compelled to fall back before our armies. In many sections of the country they have not left a mill to grind grain for their own suffering families, lest we might use them to supply our armies. We must do the same. I have endeavored to impress these views upon our commanders for the last two years. You are almost the only one who has properly applied them. I do not approve of General Hunter's course in burning private, houses, or uselessly destroying private property--that is barbarous; but I approve of taking or destroying whatever may serve as supplies to us or to the enemy's armies.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. W. HALLECK,
Major-General and Chief of Staff.
Source: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
Actually he never got the chance to accomplish the abolition of slavery through legislation.
The South seceded before he could try to.
“600,000+ dead.
10th Amendment de facto repealed.
A centralized, oppressive federal government.
A marxist president trying to turn America into a European socialist state.
That’s Lincoln’s legacy.”
Yet the legacy of the Confederates was to start the death and rebellion against the United States in order to preserve ‘slavery economics’ and not freedom.
The Confederates not only wanted to repeal the 10th Amendment but they wanted to repeal the entire Constitution.
The Confederate democrats championed slavery and fought long after to preserve their campaign of hatred for capitalism and freedom.
The Confederate democrats supported the rise of the Progressive democrats and fought against freedom for years and years to come. They also continually waged a poitical war against the Constitution that wanted to secede from so long ago.
From the Confederate democrats to today’s Progressive democrats the legacy of your party has always been the same.
Rebellion, ‘Slavery economics’, and a complete lack of morality. This is the legacy of the Confederate democrats. That lead to Wilson and the Progressive democrats.
The Confederate democrats tried to secede fro the Constitution and then Wilson, the Progressive democrat who had the support of Confederates, was the first President to denounce the ideology of the Framers.
Lincoln’s actions were the direct cause of death for 600,000 Americans;
historians try to justify that as a valid cost to free 4,000,000 (legally held) slaves.
But then, we both know that Lincoln’s war was not about freeing slaves, now don’t we.
I'd say the confederates actions were responsible.
historians try to justify that as a valid cost to free 4,000,000 (legally held) slaves.
Can you point me to a historian who says that?
But then, we both know that Lincoln’s war was not about freeing slaves, now don’t we.
Correct. We both know that and Lincoln never claimed that. He fought to preserve the Union. Freeing the slaves was simply a side effect of that war started by the Confederates.
Perhaps not initially, but we do know that the south's war was to perpetuate and expand the institution of slavery.
Says Foghorn Leghorn, who always gets lost in his own ranting rhetoric.
You throw the word "slaver" around as if you thought it had a Velcro backing.
I don't recall every having used the word "slaver." Not my style.
He looks like a man who has an honest question about the reliability of the quote, and its provenience.
What quote? He made his comment about footnotes in relation to the whole piece, not to any particular quote, but if you're refering to the quotation he calls into question, the open field quote, it's from an address to an Ohio regiment. I found it in less than 5 minutes:
ADDRESS TO THE 166TH OHIO REGIMENT, AUGUST 22, 1864.
The "elevate the condition of men quote was also easy to find:
First Message to Congress, at the Special Session. July 4, 1861
There are plenty of bogus quotes floating around the Internet; and the passage cited would seem to be sufficiently trenchant, that anyone who's read David Donald, Wm. Herndon, Bruce Catton, or Carl Sandburg might reasonably wonder why he hadn't seen the quote before, if it had any power to illuminate Lincoln and his policies.
The "elevate the condition of men" quote is in Donald's biography. The "open field" quote is in Lincoln's collected works and in most collections of his writings. William Herndon was the source for Lincoln's reading on economics. Herndon's not always reliable, but if you recognize him as an authority, you can't say that you don't have an inkling of what Lincoln may have been reading.
Of course we can't know exactly and precisely what anyone thought. Of course we have to look at their actions. But after saying that you proceed to ... list a grab bag of Lincoln quotes claiming that they show "equivocation." You can't have it both ways: you can't attack Guelzo for simply including quotes and other written material, and then try to build a case out of written materials. If we judge wholly on actions we can discount your verbiage. If we do take his speeches into account, we can't confine our data to the few that you like to cite.
Any politician is going to tailor his statements to his audience and to the circumstances of the time. If he doesn't he's out of politics very shortly. I think you've been unduly influenced by the current concept of politicians as ideologues who simply repeat one extreme idea over and over again, but if you look at any elected politician's statements, especially those who've held administrative office they don't add up to such a monolithic picture.
I can't help noticing the slight of hand in your original post. You don't deal with what Guelzo said about Lincoln's economic ideas. Instead you launch into an attack on what you see as his wavering commitment to abolishing slavery and then on his lack of commitment to racial equality, finishing up with tariffs. That's four or five issues there: Lincoln's economic support for free labor and open competition in the free states, his opposition to the expansion of slavery, abolitionist tendencies he didn't share, a commitment to racial equality that wasn't his either, and his views on free trade and tariffs.
There may have been contradictions or "equivocations" in Lincoln's views, as there are in the views of all politicians if they are half-way honest with themselves and their public -- or if they aren't, but in the context of the times it wasn't an equivocation to oppose the expansion of slavery and accept slavery where it existed or to oppose slavery and not favor full racial equality.
Opposition to Kansas-Nebraska and Dred Scott, abolition, and racial equality were separate issues to the Northerners of the day and one's views on one issue didn't determine one's opinion about the others. Southerners tended to lump them together and attack Lincoln as an abolitionist and racial amalgamator. If you really want to represent the Southern point of view, maybe you should look into that aspect. Maybe they were on to something there. Ask lentulus.
What you offer up as contradictory or equivocal wouldn't appear that way to someone alive at the time. What is your normal baseline for unequivocal, uncontradictory politics anyway? Secessionists who screamed about freedom and equality while they got their living by exploiting unfree labor? The idea of Lincoln as uniquely hypocritical and scheming really doesn't fit the realities of his day.
It took 100 years to get from emancipation to a national commitment to racial equality. Lincoln was right in believing that the feelings of Whites would not accept equality for African-Americans. He may have been wrong in not pursuing that goal, but it would have meant an end to his political career and whoever became president in his place would not have been anymore inclined to support full equality.
I'm not nonsequitur. I don't enjoy putting up with all this nonsense and making the same response over and over again against other people's specious arguments. I miss him because he never tired of all this stuff and never let it get to him. He might have seemed testy at times, but given the provocation he handled himself quite well and put up with things that no ordinary mortal should be expected to put up with. If you relished the give and take of argument and finding someone who'd respond critically and seriously to every little claim and complaint you had, rather than people who'd simply agree with you and attack anyone who disagreed or people who'd simply dismiss your maunderings, maybe you miss him too.
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