The Terrible Truth About Abraham Lincoln and the Confederate War

Snap Out of it, America! ^ | 1/20/14 | Michael Hutcheson

[mhutcheson]

President Lincoln has been all but deified in America, with a god-like giant statue at a Parthenon-like memorial in Washington. Generations of school children have been indoctrinated with the story that “Honest Abe” Lincoln is a national hero who saved the Union and fought a noble war to end slavery, and that the “evil” Southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery. This is the Yankee myth of history, written and promulgated by Northerners, and it is a complete falsity. It was produced and entrenched in the culture in large part to gloss over the terrible war crimes committed by Union soldiers in the War Between the States, as well as Lincoln’s violations of the law, his shredding of the Constitution, and other reprehensible acts. It has been very effective in keeping the average American ignorant of the real causes of the war, and the real nature, character and record of Lincoln. Let us look at some unpleasant facts.

In his first inaugural address, Lincoln stated clearly that (1) he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery where it existed, (2) that he had no inclination or intention to do so even if he had the legal authority, (3) that he would enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, returning runaway slaves escaping to the North to their masters in the South, and (4) that he fully supported the Thirteenth Amendment then being debated in Congress which would protect slavery in perpetuity and was irrevocable. He later famously stated, “Do not paint me with the Abolitionist brush.”

Although there was some opposition to slavery in the country, the government was willing to concede everything the South wanted regarding slavery to keep it in the Union. Given all these facts, the idea that the South seceded to protect slavery is as absurd as the idea that Lincoln fought the war to end slavery. Lincoln himself said in a famous letter after the war began that his sole purpose was to save the Union, and not to either save or end slavery; that if he could save the Union without freeing a single slave, he would. Nothing could be clearer.

For decades before the war, the South, through harsh tariffs, had been supplying about 85% of the country’s revenue, nearly all of which was being spent in the North to boost its economy, build manufacturing, infrastructure, railroads, canals, etc. With the passage of the 47% Morrill Tariff the final nail was in the coffin. The South did not secede to protect slavery, although certainly they wished to protect it; they seceded over a dispute about unfair taxation, an oppressive Federal government, and the right to separate from that oppression and be governed “by consent”, exactly the same issues over which the Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War. When a member of Lincoln’s cabinet suggested he let the South go in peace, Lincoln famously replied, “Let the South go? Where, then, would we get our revenue!” He then launched a brutal, empirical war to keep the free and sovereign states, by force of arms, in the Union they had created and voluntarily joined, and then voluntarily left. This began his reign of terror.

Lincoln was the greatest tyrant and despot in American history. In the first four months of his presidency, he created a complete military dictatorship, destroyed the Constitution, ended forever the constitutional republic which the Founding Fathers instituted, committed horrendous crimes against civilian citizens, and formed the tyrannical, overbearing and oppressive Federal government which the American people suffer under to this day. In his first four months, he

1. Failed to call Congress into session after the South fired upon Fort Sumter, in direct violation of the Constitution.
2. Called up an army of 75,000 men, bypassing the Congressional authority in direct violation of the Constitution.
3. Unilaterally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a function of Congress, violating the Constitution. This gave him the power, as he saw it, to arrest civilians without charge and imprison them indefinitely without trial---which he did.
4. Ignored a Supreme Court order to restore the right of habeas corpus, thus violating the Constitution again and ignoring the Separation of Powers which the Founders put in place exactly for the purpose of preventing one man’s using tyrannical powers in the executive.
5. When the Chief Justice forwarded a copy of the Supreme Court’s decision to Lincoln, he wrote out an order for the arrest of the Chief Justice and gave it to a U.S. Marshall for expedition, in violation of the Constitution.
6. Unilaterally ordered a naval blockade of southern ports, an act of war, and a responsibility of Congress, in violation of the Constitution.
7. Commandeered and closed over 300 newspapers in the North, because of editorials against his war policy and his illegal military invasion of the South. This clearly violated the First Amendment freedom of speech and press clauses.
8. Sent in Army forces to destroy the printing presses and other machinery at those newspapers, in violation of the Constitution.
9. Arrested the publishers, editors and owners of those newspapers, and imprisoned them without charge and without trial for the remainder of the war, all in direct violation of both the Constitution and the Supreme Court order aforementioned.
10. Arrested and imprisoned, without charge or trial, another 15,000-20,000 U.S. citizens who dared to speak out against the war, his policies, or were suspected of anti-war feelings. (Relative to the population at the time, this would be equivalent to President G.W. Bush arresting and imprisoning roughly 150,000-200,000 Americans without trial for “disagreeing” with the Iraq war; can you imagine?)
11. Sent the Army to arrest the entire legislature of Maryland to keep them from meeting legally, because they were debating a bill of secession; they were all imprisoned without charge or trial, in direct violation of the Constitution.
12. Unilaterally created the state of West Virginia in direct violation of the Constitution.
13. Sent 350,000 Northern men to their deaths to kill 350,000 Southern men in order to force the free and sovereign states of the South to remain in the Union they, the people, legally voted to peacefully withdraw from, all in order to continue the South’s revenue flow into the North.

These are just a few of the most egregious things Lincoln did during his despotic presidency. He set himself up as a tyrannical dictator with powers never before utilized or even imagined by any previous administration. During this four years of terrible war he was one of the greatest despots the world has ever known, his tyranny focused against his own countrymen, both North and South. He was called a despot and tyrant by many newspapers and citizens both North and South, until he had imprisoned nearly all those who dared to simply speak out against his unconstitutional usurpations of power. Those who disagreed with him were branded as “traitors”, just as were the brave and honorable men in the states which had legally seceded from the Union over just such issues as these criminal abuses of power by the Federal government.

Four months after Fort Sumter, when Lincoln finally called Congress back into session, no one dared oppose anything he wanted or speak out against him for fear of imprisonment, so completely had he entrenched his unilateral power and silenced his other many critics. The Union army, under Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and President Lincoln, committed active genocide against Southern civilians---this is difficult for some to believe, but it is explicit in their writings and dispatches at the time and indisputable in their actions. Tens of thousands of Southern men, women and children---civilians---white and black, slave and free alike---were shot, hanged, raped, imprisoned without trial, their homes, lands and possessions stolen, pillaged and burned, in one of the most horrific and brutal genocides ever inflicted upon a people anywhere; but the Yankee myth of history is silent in these well-documented matters. For an excellent expose of these war crimes and their terrible extent, see War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco (Pelican Publishing Co. 2007, ISBN 9871589804661).

Only after the Union had suffered two years of crushing defeats in battle did Lincoln resolve to “emancipate” the slaves, and only as a war measure, a military tactic, not for moral or humanitarian purposes. He admitted this, remarking, “We must change tactics or lose the game.” He was hoping, as his original draft of the document shows, that a slave uprising would occur, making it harder for Southerners to continue the war. His only interest in freeing the slaves was in forcing the South to remain in the Union. His Emancipation Proclamation was denounced by Northerners, Southerners and Europeans alike for its absurdity and hypocrisy; for, it only “freed” the slaves in the seceded states---where he could not reach them---and kept slavery intact in the North and the border states---where he could have freed them at once.

The Gettysburg Address, the most famous speech in American history, is an absurd piece of war rhetoric and a poetry of lies. We were not “engaged in a great Civil War, to see whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure.” The South was engaged in a War of Independence from a tyrannical North, and after having legally seceded, wished only “to be let alone.” The North was engaged in a war of empire, to keep the South involuntarily under its yoke. Government “of the people, by the people and for the people” would not have “perished from the earth” had the North lost the war; on the contrary, it perished in the United States when the North won the war; for, freely representative government, by consent of the governed, is exactly what the South was fighting for and exactly what Lincoln’s military victory destroyed.

The checks and balances of powers, the separation of powers, the constitutional constraints so carefully and deliberately put into place by the Founding Fathers, had all been destroyed in Lincoln’s first months. The Republic which the Founders gave us had been completely destroyed and a new nation-state was set up; one in which the free and sovereign States would afterward be only vassals and tributaries, slaves to an all-powerful, oppressive Federal government. This new nation-state is completely different in both nature and consequence to the original American Republic. One only has to look around today to see the end results and legacy of Lincoln’s war, his destruction of freedom, and his institution of despotic, centralized governmental power and tyranny.

In retrospect, it is a tragedy that John Wilkes Booth did not act four years earlier. Slavery would have ended naturally, as it has everywhere else (except in African and Arab states); the American Republic, liberty, and 700,000 lives would have been saved, and untold thousands of those young men would have lived to contribute their ingenuity, inventions, creativity and talents to the political, economic, literary, scientific and social legacy of our people. And the greatest despotic tyrant in American history would never have gained the foothold of power or been able to establish the oppressive and omnipotent Federal government we all suffer under today.

[central_va]

Richmond VA was an industrial power house. Tredagar Iron works being one example of Southern industrial enterprise.

The Tredegar Iron Works was a historic iron works in Richmond, the capital of the U.S. state of Virginia.[4] Opened in 1837, by 1860 it was the third-largest iron manufacturer in the United States.[5] During the American Civil War, the works served as the primary iron and artillery production facility of the Confederate States of America. The iron works avoided destruction during the Evacuation Fire of 1865, and continued production through the middle of the 20th century.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

The South, however, was an agricultural powerhouse; and agriculture was a stronger element of the economy in the mid-nineteenth century than industrial output. To whom did the U.S. export industrial goods in the mid-nineteenth century, such that it surpassed the revenues generated by agriculture?

If the South was this great rich region they would have paid Britain and/or France to keep shipping clear and won the war buying whatever they needed off of Europe.

Hell, the Northern states in Congress had to pass protectionist laws in order to give Northern industry a hand up.

They did not have to do that, they just thought they did, like today's economic illiterates think we have to have tariffs. We did just fine when the tariffs were reduced.

That’s a red herring, and is comparing apples to oranges, because by the time Reagan came around the U.S. had fundamentally changed from what it was in the mid-nineteenth century, such that the U.S. of Reagan’s time hardly resembled the U.S. of Lincoln’s.

Then why did you bring it up? You say Obama and Lincoln were alike, and I reply Obama is a liar and Lincoln was more like Reagan than like any 20th-21th century Democrat.

[PeaRidge]

Your previous statement is categorically misleading by implying that the lower tariffs in the 1850s was the status quo at the beginning of secession.

It certainly was not. It was the re-beginning of severe protectionist tariffs imposed by the republican party of Lincoln.

Protectionist Tariffs, i.e. the Morrill Tariff, was going to cause the decline of the Southern Economy.

How?

Many posters here like yourself have fixated on the specific percentages of certain tariffs in order to draw conclusions of the relative impacts of the tariffs on different sections of the country.

Speculation on the percentages and their impact on secession vary widely, and are misleading.

The true cost of tariffs, and especially for protectionist ones like the proposed Morrill tariff as described in the Republican platform, and which was to be approved by the Republican government, first in 1860 and then in 1861, were measured not in the tax revenue it generated but the impact it had on (1) price and (2) trade.

Beginning with the impact on price, it was common knowledge that items that attracted protectionist policies were almost always goods that cost more domestically than the world price when they were imported from abroad. Therefore the tariff sought to raise the import price with a tax, bringing it up to or higher than the domestic price and thereby turning the market over to the domestic producer who had no motivation to adjust to lowering of prices elsewhere.

But inherent to lower prices are certain benefits received by the consumer. When goods are cheap, consumer money goes further and can buy more. This benefit, called the consumer surplus, is lost and redistributed elsewhere when prices are raised by a tariff.

Part of it transfers over into the producer surplus in the protected domestic industry. The producer gets it as a benefit of the tariff, which shifts the market to his product over the cheaper import. Another part goes into the government in the form of tax collections. And the third part, the consumer surplus, is lost entirely as dead weight.

These three aspects of the tariff burden consumers, by way of higher prices, with an inescapably lesser benefit being returned to the producers, thus incurring a net loss.

Naturally people attempt to minimize their personal burdens by passing their costs from the tariff onto others in higher prices elsewhere, so a tariff even on one item eventually spreads into a burden throughout the whole economy.

As costs of the tariff are passed through onto others they will eventually reach exporters as well. But since exporters must sell at the world price in order to get merchants from abroad to take their goods they cannot pass the tariff burden onto the merchants with higher prices of their own. Thus exporters end up bearing the heaviest weight of the tariff. (the Southern growers)

The Southern economy was entirely export-based and it alone accounted for some 75% of the entire nation's exports. In light of that fact it is of little wonder why they objected to higher tariffs and of little wonder why they complained of bearing the real costs of those same tariffs.

With regard to the issue of international trade, it was a two way street. As the businessmen imported goods, they paid for them in return, and to do so they exported goods of their own and/or offered credit as payment. As a result of this, imports and exports were inescapably intertwined and interdependent. When a barrier existed to impede one, the other stopped as well. That is how blockades work.

They knew that tariffs, and especially protective tariffs, also functioned economically in the same way that a blockade worked militarily. That is why higher tariff status, or sanctions, had been placed against countries as a tool of economic war. They were essentially barriers to importation because they imposed intentionally prohibitive taxes on imported goods in order to benefit the domestic producer of that same good.

The proposed Morrill tariff would do this at one of the highest levels ever to practically all major imports into the United States. But since trade was a two way street and since imports were heavily intertwined with and codependent with exports, the barrier on imports would harm exports and kill off trade in general.

To complicate things further, high import tariffs would have a way of provoking other countries to impose so-called retaliatory tariffs of their own against the United States. The moment this would happen a trade war would emerge and the former trade between those two countries would evaporate even further.

Every one knew the southern economy was almost entirely dependent upon exports.

The Southerners knew what would happen to their export-dependent economy when trade would stop due to a barrier such as a high protective tariff.

[PeaRidge]

The elevated levels of tariff taxation imposed by Morrill would lead to vast changes in the trade system, and would be an intended or unintended consequence of Republican policy making.

When the trade dies off so does that economy, and thus a second major reason as to why the South hated tariffs so much. For all practical purposes the Morrill tariff would gut them not once but twice. It gutted them by way of prices since, as exporters, they were the least able of any sector of the economy when it comes to passing on the higher prices to others. It also gutted them by way of undermining international trade, upon which their economy was directly dependent.

Trade and tariff wars had existed for centuries, and had been a major reason for the ongoing wars between France and Great Britain. Ultimately, wisdom prevailed on the European continent, and all barriers to free trade had been eliminated.

Against the backdrop of the obvious advantages of free trade to the overall economy, the Republicans persisted in their efforts to pass the Morrill Tariff. Southern politicians knew how determined the Republicans were in their efforts to establish protectionist measures and they made every effort to resist until it became apparent that the election of 1860 was going to result in sufficient Congressional reapportionment to permit their defeat.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

Yeah, I hate tariffs too. The southern states got their way with tariffs in the early 1850s and would have continued getting their way, they had the votes to defeat tariffs.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

The south had the votes to defeat he Morrill tariff.

[PeaRidge]

You said: “The southern states...would have continued getting their way, they had the votes to defeat tariffs.”

And then you say: “The south had the votes to defeat he Morrill tariff.”

Do You know if that was true in either April of 1860 or March of 1861?

[Partisan Gunslinger]

Do You know if that was true in either April of 1860 or March of 1861?

Had they not seceded, the Morrill tariff would not have passed. They had the votes to defeat it.

[PeaRidge]

What was the result of the vote in the House of Representatives?

[Zionist Conspirator]

Oh my goodness. Why don't you tell just why the "evil" Southern states seceded, then? Why don't you tell us that the Republican party opposed the extension of slavery into territories originally forbidden it by the Missouri Compromise and that when a Republican (who had no intention whatsoever of interfering with slavery where it already existed, btw) was elected President, seven states had a hissy fit and seceded before the man was ever even inaugurated? Why don't you tell us that the plot to spread slavery throughout all the states and territories was so wonderful and holy that anyone who opposed it was a "communist?"

Why don't you tell this to the thousands of descendents of Southern patriots who fought for their country rather than rebel, among whom were my own ancestors?

Why don't you come to the small Southern cemetery where our family buries its dead (and which contains the bodies of many Union veterans but not one rebel so far as I know) and tell the people their ancestors were "communists" and proto-Obamabots?

You miserable feudal neo-Confederates should go back to the Democrat party that spawned you.

[rustbucket]

Had they not seceded, the Morrill tariff would not have passed. They had the votes to defeat it.

The South did not have the votes to stop it once the newly elected Senate took office even if no Southern state had seceded. Here, as posted by former poster GOPCapitalist in 2003, is the vote calculation by Texas Senator Louis Wigfall who outlined his vote calculations on December 12, 1860 before any state had seceded. It deals with Lincoln's nominations in the future Senate, but it applies equally well to the Morrill Tariff vote.

"Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four...There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body, even if every slaveholding State should remain in the Union, which, thank God, they will not do."

[PeaRidge]

After the events of January, 1861, the tariff problem was solved for the Southern states. Secession made it irrelevant for the Confederacy.

And paradoxically, the tariff issue shifted and was now of utmost concern to the Union government.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

What was the result of the vote in the House of Representatives?

Why so cryptic?

[Partisan Gunslinger]

The South did not have the votes to stop it once the newly elected Senate took office even if no Southern state had seceded. Here, as posted by former poster GOPCapitalist in 2003, is the vote calculation by Texas Senator Louis Wigfall who outlined his vote calculations on December 12, 1860 before any state had seceded. It deals with Lincoln's nominations in the future Senate, but it applies equally well to the Morrill Tariff vote.

Who says it would have been the same number to support the tariff? I would have sided with Lincoln in fighting slavery but would have voted against him regarding tariffs had I been a Senator then, and there would have been more of those like me, especially after all of the strife up until 1853 or so over tariffs. They would not have voted lockstep with an obviously failed system

[Partisan Gunslinger]

After the events of January, 1861, the tariff problem was solved for the Southern states. Secession made it irrelevant for the Confederacy. And paradoxically, the tariff issue shifted and was now of utmost concern to the Union government.

The south got their way in 1853 regarding tariffs, it was already off the table.

[PeaRidge]

What about that do you not understand?

[Partisan Gunslinger]

What about that do you not understand?

There's not anything to not understand. You post in a cryptic manner. It's like you want to debate, but can't find anything concrete to make a point on so you post cryptically. You play games rather than state your point.

[rockrr]

That’s because he sucks so bad at debating he falls back on the games to compensate.

[rustbucket]

The south got their way in 1853 regarding tariffs, it was already off the table.

The South got their way only in that the tariff was reduced, but it was still transferring 40 to 50 million dollars a year to the North in terms of higher prices on imported goods and higher prices on protected Northern manufactured goods.

Here is Senator Robert Toombs on November 13, 1860 on protectionism of the North (my bold and underline below):

Even the fishermen of Massachusetts and New England demand and receive from the public treasury about half a million of dollars per annum as a pure bounty on their business of catching codfish. The North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties under the name of protection, for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue, and there is not an artisan in brass, or iron, or wood, or weaver, or spinner in wool or cotton, or a calicomaker, or iron-master, or a coal-owner, in all of the Northern or Middle States, who has not received what he calls the protection of his government on his industry to the extent of from fifteen to two hundred per cent from the year 1791 to this day. They will not strike a blow, or stretch a muscle, without bounties from the government. No wonder they cry aloud for the glorious Union; they have the same reason for praising it, that craftsmen of Ephesus had for shouting, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," whom all Asia and the world worshipped. By it they got their wealth; by it they levy tribute on honest labor. It is true that this policy has been largely sustained by the South; it is true that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction - a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue; but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure; and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate. It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a combination which has swept the country. There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New-York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists. There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders. The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles. The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists. The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill - the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South.

Here is another item for you. The one is from a December 1860 article in the Chicago Times as reported in the New Orleans Daily Picayune:

The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole . . . We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.

[PeaRidge]

You find a simple question cryptic?