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Abraham Lincoln, Stepfather of Our Country
The New American ^ | 11/11/2012 | John J. Dwyer

Posted on 12/15/2012 3:17:01 AM PST by IbJensen

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To: BroJoeK

Except that an attack on the USA by the CSA hardly constituted oppression of the people of the South that would justify their secession.

There is a longstanding and untrue myth that the Upper South states, including VA, seceded in reaction to Lincoln’s call for militia to “suppress insurrection.”

In actual fact, the move shifted dramatically throughout the region as soon as the CSA fired that first shot, and secession was from that point inevitable. That the CSA fired the first shot didn’t make any difference in the Upper South, it was the outbreak of fighting itself that led them to spring to the assistance of their regional brethren.

OTOH, in the Border states and in the North, especially the Lower North, the CSA firing first made a huge difference in the public perception of the war.


141 posted on 12/20/2012 5:34:45 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

Mood, not move.


142 posted on 12/20/2012 6:01:29 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: BroJoeK
Point is: as Lincoln said, no state existed before the Union declared it independent, and no original state existed outside the Union before the new Constitution was ratified.

Sure, he can say that, but we are talking about fine points of word definitions.

143 posted on 12/20/2012 6:25:55 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Sherman Logan
Sherman Logan: "In actual fact, the move shifted dramatically throughout the region as soon as the CSA fired that first shot, and secession was from that point inevitable."

I think you meant "mood", but this is the great mystery that nobody fully understands.
Before Fort Sumter (April 12-14), Unionists held power throughout the Upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.
After Sumter, Unionists lost in every state, beginning in Virginia, and the question is: what happened?

I think the answer is, those Unionists did not so much voluntarily change their minds as they were intimidated and threatened into supporting secessionists -- specifically to prevent a coup in Virginia, that would overthrow the pro-Union government and potentially kill any unreconstructed Unionists.

In the Upper South, majority Unionists were cowed, intimidated, threatened and overthrown by large minorities of Secessionists.
But in Border States (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri), the Secessionist minorities were just too small to have that same effect, and so they refused to secede.

144 posted on 12/20/2012 6:32:09 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK

If the federal government is going to own that land, they should at least be paying the state the property taxes on it. Selling it off to the Chinese may not be a good idea, but at least the rest of the property tax payers in the state might be able to get a break.


145 posted on 12/20/2012 6:32:26 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic
tacticalogic: "If the federal government is going to own that land, they should at least be paying the state the property taxes on it."

You may be correct, and I don't know the law or facts of this.
I'd say two things:

So, considering alternatives, suppose different levels of government get into wars of, "if you tax me, I'll tax you", then how are average citizens any better off?

146 posted on 12/20/2012 8:28:26 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK
So, considering alternatives, suppose different levels of government get into wars of, "if you tax me, I'll tax you", then how are average citizens any better off?

If the federal government has to pay property taxes on the property it owns in a State, just like everyone else that money goes to the State with no strings attached, unlike the "revenue sharing" shell game they play now.

147 posted on 12/20/2012 8:36:45 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: BroJoeK

You clearly have little to no grasp of the Revolutionary War era. Your fixation upon learning English indicates recent immigrant origins. Perhaps the two are intertwined in your case.


148 posted on 12/20/2012 9:43:10 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry
RegulatorCountry post #148: "You clearly have little to no grasp of the Revolutionary War era."

So is that your alleged area of expertise?
And your credentials consist of what, exactly?

RegulatorCountry post #138: "You’re too vague upon American history to be offering such commentary."

So what language do you call that, and where and when did you first learn it?

RegulatorCountry post #148: "Your fixation upon learning English indicates recent immigrant origins."

You are obviously struggling to express my native language, and that would be no problem at all, except at the same time you imply a certain expertise in American history, which seems odd for someone who doesn't speak the language so well.

But in direct answer to your question, yes, I am of "recent" immigrant origins.
My "recent" immigrant ancestors arrived in this country speaking a foreign language in the early 1700s.
So we have only spoken English for the past seven generations.

;-)

149 posted on 12/20/2012 11:33:10 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: tacticalogic
tacticalogic: "If the federal government has to pay property taxes on the property it owns in a State..."

Good point!
I agree that would be better.
But my guess is that Eastern states which have very little Federal land, probably wouldn't like Federal taxes being paid disporportionately to Western states and Alaska.
So it's all politics, with the usual result that nobody is entirely happy with the solutions.

150 posted on 12/20/2012 11:41:04 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK

You’re too annoying of a presumptuous little prick to have colonial ancestry, quite honestly. There is no patriot blood in you.


151 posted on 12/20/2012 11:42:10 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: BroJoeK
But my guess is that Eastern states which have very little Federal land, probably wouldn't like Federal taxes being paid disporportionately to Western states and Alaska.

The Western states and Alaska probably don't like the Eastern states having more say over what happens to large parts of their territory then they do. If the Eastern states don't like the idea of paying the property taxes maybe they'll think twice about voting to have more of it taken over, or getting some of it back in to private ownership.

As I said earlier, you can't have a working republic if the national government can arbitrarily take resources of the member states. We're guaranteed a republican form of government in the Constitution. You can't very well claim to have that without a republic.

152 posted on 12/20/2012 11:58:31 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: BroJoeK
I recently finished Battle Cry of Freedom, a truly excellent work, BTW.

The author pointed out that northerners (and most historians since) have misinterpreted southern "unionism."

Southerners obviously fit on a spectrum, with one end favoring secession immediately, and the other end opposing it under any circumstances. The "unionists" Abe and historians have talked about so much were generally fence-sitters, not true unionists. They wanted to put off a decision in hope things would work themselves out, or wait to secede until Lincoln had committed some "overt act" that in their eyes would justify secession.

But unionists were nearly unanimous in opposition to what they called "coercion," which of course meant any attempt to actually enforce the laws of the US in the seceded states."Coercion" in most of their eyes would constitute an "overt act" of oppression.

There were true Unionists in the South, but mostly in the mountains. There were few elsewhere. In Mr. McPherson's opinion, which I think he supports very well, secession was very popular in the South, as shown by those states where a referendum was taken. Opposition was regional, not general.

The fire-eaters successfully precipitated the crisis that led to secession, but they did not intimidate their fellow citizens into secession. The population of Upper South states voluntarily walked straight into the wood chipper.

And you are of course quite right about mood, not move. :)

153 posted on 12/20/2012 12:45:30 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: RegulatorCountry; rockrr
RegulatorCountry: "You’re too annoying of a presumptuous little prick to have colonial ancestry, quite honestly.
There is no patriot blood in you."

"Presumptious little prick"? Who talks like that?
"Quite honestly"? I haven't seen an honest word yet in your posts, pal.

Rather, I fully note that your function here appears as simply to pile insult on insult.
Apparently you have nothing of value to offer the discussion, and no intention of posting anything except false accusations.
So I'd imagine there's a name for posters like you -- "troll" comes to mind, but maybe you're something a bit different?

A troll who can't speak normal American English, so what's up with that?

154 posted on 12/20/2012 6:11:51 PM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: Sherman Logan
Sherman Logan: "The fire-eaters successfully precipitated the crisis that led to secession, but they did not intimidate their fellow citizens into secession."

Lankford's book shows there was a good deal more intimidation of what I'll call "weak Unionists" in, for example Virginia, than you might suppose.

Strong Unionists in mountains of western Maryland, western Virginia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, plus those in most of Kentucky and Missouri all resisted secessionists, so that proves it could be done, but only under special conditions.

Secessionists did not need a majority to take control, but the did need some minimum level of minority to successfully intimidate their weak Unionist neighbors.

155 posted on 12/20/2012 6:53:05 PM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: IbJensen

With the current Obama comparisons to Lincoln(by Obama himself and the MSM), we now have a better idea of who the real Lincoln was.


156 posted on 01/11/2013 2:45:08 PM PST by izzatzo
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To: BroJoeK

I don’t know who has their panties in a twist more regarding the comparisons between Øbongo and Lincoln - the libtards or the Lost Cause Losers (or am I repeating myself?!) LOL


157 posted on 01/12/2013 3:43:28 PM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr

;-)


158 posted on 01/12/2013 10:45:58 PM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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