North Carolina GOP Lawmaker Calls Abraham Lincoln a 'Tyrant' Like Adolf Hitler

Time ^ | 4-12-2017 | Alana Abramson

[brucedickinson]

Pittman replied, "And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort of tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional." Pittman did not respond to request for comment from TIME to clarify his remarks.

[jeffersondem]

“What does it mean?”

Here we can rely on the clear meaning of the text.

Beyond that, the purpose of the paragraph was to give the slave states - all 13 of them - the opportunity to include in the DOI a charge that slavery, and the slave trade, was the fault of the British. And to incentivize citizen support for the revolution by referencing the King's involvement in “exciting those very people to rise in arms among us” - in other words, slave rebellions.

The question you and I have to ask is why did the slave states want to wreck this paragraph?

[jeffersondem]

“Did Lincoln round up millions of people and kill them?”

By all the accounts I’ve seen it was less than a million.

And it would not be correct to say those killed were “rounded up.” They were generally killed in the field.

It was only legislators, newspaper editors, and political opponents that were “rounded up.”

[HandyDandy]

.....why did the slave states want to wreck this paragraph?

According to Jefferson's autobiography, Congress struck the passage from the final version of the Declaration in deference to South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the slave trade with Africa. But that is the easy part to understand. What you keep avoiding is this part, ".....every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." This statement is contrary to your myth that the 13 original colonies were pro-slavery. Who made these legislative attempts that Jefferson speaks of? Perhaps there was an active abolitionist faction alive and well in your mythological pro-slavery North? Perhaps Jefferson is correct that the North voted, not for slavery, but in deference to South Carolina and Georgia?

[HandyDandy]

Was Jefferson Davis a tyrant like A.H.?

[HandyDandy]

"I believe the North and the South would have gotten along fine as two separate countries."

Only a thirty foot high wall would have kept your slaves from fleeing to the free North. Do you think your slaves were going to build that wall?

[central_va]

Good fences make good neighbors.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "You are an absolute idiot to think the South wanted to or even could conquer the North.
What an embarrassment you are.
Turn in your historian card.
At one time I thought you had a brain but really you know nothing."

Again, you're playing word games because the difference between "conquer" versus "defeat", "destroy", "vanquish", "dismember" "demolish" & "ruin" are all fine points of definition, and they all mean the same thing: downfall of the United States.
Lincoln himself said Kentucky was the difference between Union victory & defeat.
Lose Kentucky, and Union also loses Missouri & Maryland.
Lose those and the Confederacy has a powerful argument that mid-western states like Iowa, Illinois & Indiana should secede & join to use Mississippi river transportation.

Consider: in early 1861 Democrats in New York City cheered on their Southern brethren, and wanted to join them.
A victorious Confederacy could reopen that discussion.
So the United States would be defeated, carved & dismembered.
And war would never end until the Confederacy was the dominant military power in North & Central America.

For central_va to suggest otherwise is simply not to understand the mindset of leaders like Jefferson Davis in early 1861 and beyond.

central_va: "Never was the war sold as "we in North are going to be conquered by the South".
That is simply preposterous.
Find one newspaper article from the time period that even insinuates that.
Find one letter."

Many Northerners turned defeatist whenever Confederate armies invaded Union states, which happened frequently.
I count 14 of 30 remaining Union states & territories invaded by Confederate military forces.
For a discussion of Confederate strategy, I suggest:

Steven Hardesty: Confederate Origins of Union Victory, Culture & Decisions in War

You may remember Jefferson Davis' 1862 preparations to invade Illinois were set aside when Grant defeated Confederates at Forts Henry & Donelson.
Well, as late as 1864, Davis' strategic plan was for Confederate John Bell Hood to defeat Union George Thomas in Tennessee and then march on to... Chicago!
Davis wanted to split up the Union and bring mid-western states into the Confederate orbit.

Hood had a somewhat different idea.
He wanted to first defeat Thomas then march to Richmond, join Lee and defeat Grant.
As it happened, such dreams were extinguished at Franklin (Schofield) & Nashville (Thomas), but they demonstrate Confederate leadership was not short of big ideas.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "The South made many attempts at a negotiated peace and not the North."

Actually after April 1861, the list of North-South negotiations is pretty short, includes only the Hampton Roads Conference in early 1865.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy: "Perhaps Jefferson is correct that the North voted, not for slavery, but in deference to South Carolina and Georgia?"

Well said!
Our FRiend jeffersondem has been told the truth of this matter now several times, but it has no effect on him.
He keeps right on keeping on posting nonsense.

[central_va]

Nobody in the South thought they could beat, conquer, ruin or occupy the North. That is silly. The North was so much stronger industrially speaking and also had three times the citizenry. Do you think the Lee, Davis and Confederate Congress weren't aware of those dismal facts?

The only hope for the South was stalemate. You've been smoking something.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "The only hope for the South was stalemate. You've been smoking something."

• When Lee invaded Union Maryland in 1862 he was seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• When Lee invaded Union Pennsylvania in 1863 he was seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• When Confederates under Sibley invaded Union New Mexico Territory in 1861 they were seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• When Confederates fought with Indians in Union Oklahoma Territory they were seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• Confederate armies in Union Missouri and Union Kentucky were seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• When RE Lee commanded Confederate forces in Union West Virginia in 1861 he was seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• When Jefferson Davis prepared to invade Union Illinois in 1862 he was seeking victory, not "stalemate".
  
• As late as 1864, when John Bell Hood's Confederate army attacked Union forces in Tennessee, they were still seeking decisive victory, not "stalemate".

Point is: nobody fights for "stalemate".
Especially early-on Confederates hoped to win enough battles to call any peace settlement a decisive victory.
That's simply indisputable.

[HandyDandy]

"Find one newspaper article from the time period that even insinuates that."

Try Harpers Weekly, June 27, 1863, pg 403. Here: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/june/lee-invasion-north.html

Look for "DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE. THE INVASION OF THE NORTH." You'll find it towards the bottom of the third column.

Please stop replacing the word "invade" with "conquer". That is just an obvious dodge by you.

[central_va]

Jesus does anyone here know history? The invasion of PA by the Army of NoVa was a political move and not strategic. The purpose was to draw the Army of the Potomac out of VA which it did for all of a few months. The people of the South thought(ignorantly so) Gettysburg was a victory because of that brief respite of union occupation of parts of VA. The secondary reason was to obtain supplies from the so far untouched by war, PA region.

You people really don't know history do you. The South was painfully aware of it's shortcomings from the get go and knew a stalemate was the only positive possible out come.

But lets say the situation was reversed and the South had all the factories and the huge population advantage. Secession means to leave; what purpose would there be to leave the Union and then invade/conquer it? Kind of defeats the whole point of secession.

[central_va]

Joe, the Southern strategy from Sumter on wards was a forced settlement after a stalemate. That is fact. You are a product of some real bad education I guess.

With a small industrial base, a pretty good Union Naval blockade choking the CSA and out numbered 3:1 do you really think the people of the South are that dumb to think that they could invade/conquer/occupy the North?

I think what is going on is that history is written by the victors and they want to portray the North in this existential perilous fight against a Southern invasion which is preposterous, funny and exactly the opposite of what actually happened.

[HandyDandy]

Anyway, thanks for acknowledging that the South did indeed invade the North. That’s all I maintained. For all of the Souths’ shortcomings, they wouldn’t have come up short if they had been able to gain recognition as legitimate by France and England. A victory at Gettysburg would have earned them this recognition. Remember, War is bloody Politics, Politics is bloodless War.

[rockrr]

I’ll readily admit that I’m light on lost cause history.

[jeffersondem]

“According to Jefferson's autobiography, Congress struck the passage from the final version of the Declaration in deference to South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the slave trade with Africa.”

Thomas Jefferson? Sure, why didn't I think of that.

Do you mind if I quote from Jefferson's notes made at the time of the debates over the DOI?

“The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

There, the Man himself, identifies not just South Carolina and Georgia but “Our Northern brethren” for deleting the slave trade reference because they had been “pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

It makes a difference in the debate when you read the entire paragraph. The North; slave ships; slave trading in the past; ongoing slave trading; future slave cargoes; more millions of dollars in northern profits.

It was probably easy for the northern state delegates to vote to wreck Jefferson's original paragraph and just focus on the need to stop the slave rebellions - err, I mean “domestic insurrections.”

Your turn.

[fortheDeclaration]

The source is John Locke and the Declaration of Independence.

I don't care what conclusion he came to, there is no legal basis for secession.

There is no provision in the Constitution for it to occur.

[x]

There, the Man himself, identifies not just South Carolina and Georgia but “Our Northern brethren” for deleting the slave trade reference because they had been “pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

So Jefferson said. He tells us that South Carolina and Georgia wanted the passage removed, and that he "believes" that Northerners "felt a little tender under those censures" -- meaning that he thought some Northerners weren't happy with the passage -- but he doesn't mention any strong opinions directed against the passage.

Jefferson may have been right. But he also had an amazing ability to deceive himself and others. It was in his interest to play up Northern opposition to the condemnation of the slave trade and downplay Southern opposition. Jefferson wrote the autobiography in 1821 after the first rift had begun to open between North and South over slavery, and he was definitely on the Southern side. His blaming George III for slavery and the slave trade in the first place was a good sign that maybe he isn't the most unbiased and clear-sighted judge when it came to slavery.

[central_va]

There was never any chance of Gen. Lee marching into NYC. Ever. Wasn’t possible.