Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809

VA Viper ^ | 02/11/2018 | Harpygoddess

[harpygoddess]

It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of the people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies.

~ Lincoln

February 12 is the anniversary of the birth of the 16th - and arguably the greatest - president of these United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Born in Kentucky and raised in Illinois, Lincoln was largely self-educated and became a country lawyer in 1836, having been elected to the state legislature two years earlier. He had one term in the U.S. Congress (1847-1849) but failed (against Stephen A. Douglas) to gain election to the Senate in 1856. Nominated by the Republican party for the presidency in 1860, he prevailed against the divided Democrats, triggering the secession of the southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. As the course of the war turned more favorably for the preservation of the Union, Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864, but was assassinated in April 1865, only a week after the final victory.

[Bull Snipe]

So you would have no problem with a 12 year old mining coal or picking cotton 16 hours a day if the state law said it was ok.

[x]

Gosh! You have a lot of time on your hands to keep expounding your cockamamie theories.

Northern Newspapers had already suggested that the guns of Ft. Sumter be turned on the port of Charleston.

Newspapers said a lot of things, but the range of the guns may or may not have reached the city. In any case, the fort was more of a sitting duck than the city was. Why not wait until the fort fired before destroying it? Then it would be clear that the war was the Americans fault.

They attempted to negotiate for the Fort in good faith, but were constantly rebuffed and continuously deceived about Lincoln's intentions regarding the Fort until they no longer trusted anything that was told to them.

Consider the context. Whenever a new president takes over it's unclear whether earlier policies and understandings will be continued. Cabinet secretaries had their own goals and agendas. It wasn't that different in the South. In any case, the rebels were grabbing everything they could get their hands on and the situation was chaotic. It's not like everything was trust, concord and harmony until Lincoln got involved.

Pray tell why someone would suddenly find a need to re-man a fort that had been apparently so pointless that they had stopped keeping a garrison there?

Grrr. That is precisely the point. Decisions weren't purely materialistic. National unity, prestige and honor were involved. The thinking was if the US didn't back down, the secessionists would realize their folly and give up on it. it wasn't very realistic thinking, but it's the way people often behave in crises.

Giving everything up meant surrender. You know that and that's what you want. So why not admit that it meant surrender to Lincoln and the US and that's why they didn't want to give everything up?

And what were the Confederates led to believe about Sumter? This is from an eyewitness account by a Union officer at the time.

Incoherent article by the guy who didn't invent baseball. You string together rumors provided they support your case and ignore information that goes the other way.

Far too many people pretend we started that war with the Confederacy to give freedom to the slaves.

First, you still don't get who started that war. Second, teachers spend hours making it clear that the union wasn't fighting at the beginning of the war in order to free the slaves. I think they've done a pretty good job of that by now.

If the public wants to take pride in an army that by the end of a war ended slavery or liberated Buchenwald, good for them. It's not necessary to claim those were the goals we had at the beginning of the war or to refute the idea that they were. It's what we ended up doing -- and all the better for it.

Wannabees. The real thing you find orbiting real power.

No. It's the people who eventually get real power. The people who eventually build up or take over billion dollar corporations. The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts aren't running big businesses now, and aren't making much of an impression in politics either. People like the Huntsmans or Buffets, who come from what was once the hinterland, are making a much bigger splash.

How many people vote for representatives in their own states based on what they hear on the News Media from New York? Having ABC, CBS, NBC constantly broadcasting Democrat propaganda is the only thing keeping the congress even slightly competitive against common sense fiscally conservative Republicans.

Who even watches network news any more? And where are all those "common sense fiscally conservative Republicans" when you need them? You are living in a fantasy world, where people are bewitched by the evil New Yorkers. People may vote based on attitudes they get from sitcoms and reality TV, but nobody takes orders from network news.

If you could completely destroy the modern mass media your dreams might come true, but that's impossible. And if it could be done the result is as likely to be chaos as a return to some idyllic condition.

I don't think this is going anywhere. You sound like Radio Berlin or Radio Hanoi, always repeating the same stupefying propaganda line over and over again and ignoring everything that doesn't confirm your twisted view of the world.

[rockrr]

I'm constantly amazed amused by his looking at a clear blue sky and declaring it plaid. It does get a little tedious at times......but always good for a snicker or two...

[OIFVeteran]

So what do you think the republicans and Lincoln’s response should have done once the south had seceded?

[x]

Love Capitalism. Want more of it.

I can believe that you like people buying and selling things (and maybe people) without government getting involved. But you really seem to hate the modern world that capitalism has produced. And you call all that by the name "New York."

Many people thought that way in the 1890s, maybe the 1930s, even the 1970s. They were poor and New York City was rich. But you don't hear that kind of talk much anymore. For one thing, cities in other parts of the country, the South and West particularly, aren't poor compared to NYC. For another, life in other American cities and suburbs isn't really different from life in NYC and its suburbs.

It's not like it was a century ago when people could assume that all the investment business and all the entertainment business was concentrated in New York and that it was somehow alien and hostile and parasitic. No, there's no wall of separation between Manhattan and the rest of the country. A lot of what you call "New York" is California or Massachusetts or just urban America or American colleges. It's Houston and Dallas and Charlotte and Atlanta and Phoenix as well.

The "representation" of the New York power block which owns the media and uses it to manipulate elections is nearly half the congress. These people don't constrain their influence to just the borders of New York. The whole point is to exert influence everywhere, so long as it maintains your grip on power.

That is wrong in half a dozen ways. Schumer is the first New Yorker to hold a leadership position in the Senate (since the Federalist party folded anyway). The last Speaker of the House from New York was 150 years ago, and the last party leader in the House from New York was back in the 1930s.

Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities would certainly be offended to be taken to be just part of greater New York. And the idea that the old, dying network news outfits are the only reason why Democrats get elected in the US is laughable. Unfortunately that's not the case.

How would you prove something like that? Do away with whole categories of media? That's not going to happen. And once ideas and attitudes get established, they find different ways of expressing themselves. Even if the New York Times does fail, the people who write for it and the kind of people who write for it will find other outlets.

Moreover, isn't exerting influence and getting a grip on power what political parties and movements always do? Why is it suddenly morally wrong or objectionable when people you disagree with do it?

I understand. You get an idea into your head and just can't get rid of it, and the more people argue against it, the more you dig in your heels and refuse to concede anything.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on % of US "is" v. "are": "Based on printed documents/books of the era.
And Pray tell where were most documents/books printed during that era?"

The graph shows the use of "is" versus "are" began in the 1790s and reached a peak of 1/3 around 1820.
Do you remember what that era is noted for?
It was the "era of good feelings", President Monroe's second term, reelected without opposition, a time when Americans felt good about their country and were therefore more likely to think of it as singular rather than plural.

That "era of good feelings" didn't last long, by 1825 John Q Adams and Andrew Jackson were battling it out for leadership, and Americans' view of the United States as singular suffered accordingly.
Nevertheless from barely 10% in 1840 "is" rose to 20% in 1860, 50% in 1880, and 80% by 1900.

Iirc, the end of "are" came in 1906 with an official act of Congress declaring "is" correct.

We should note that Secretary of State Richard Olney's 1895 defense of "are" -- Olney was a Democrat serving Democrat President Cleveland whose administration was heavily dependent on the Solid South Democrat votes.
Olney himself was from Massachusetts, Cleveland from New York, but these Northeastern Power Brokers' political & grammatical alliance with Solid South Democrats should come as no surprise to DiogenesLamp, who is very concerned about such things... ;-)

Democrat Richard Olney, Secretary of State under Democrat President Grover Cleveland:

[BroJoeK]

editor-surveyor: "By 1860, it was no longer north/south.
The annexed territories were booming in the west, and by then the Salinas valley in California was producing more food than all the rest of the country combined.
That was what gave the railroads so much power."

Oh dear, was that a typo, "1860"?
Did you mean to type "1960", because that's closer to what you describe?

In 1860 what you claim here was absolutely non-existent.
In 1860 there were no railroads connecting California to the East, nor was the Salinas valley in California more than sparsely settled.
All that came after the Civil War.

As for your larger point about it being no longer north vs. south by 1860, no, far from it if by "north" you mean free states and by "south" slave states.
In 1860 the South had long dominated Washington, DC, politics, but what changed then, for the first time after the election of November 1860, was Northern Republican electoral domination of Washington.
That was the sudden change which drove Southern Democrats to declare secession and eventually war on the United States.

I think your problem is you've imagined the US economy of, say 1890 or even 1930 as what was true in 1860 and that's absolutely not the case.
1860 was a very different United States.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln arrested people who disagreed with him.
That the Supreme Court and the Congress went along with him is like saying the Politburo went along with Stalin.
Of course they did.
People are afraid of Tyrants."

Nonsense, it's absurd to compare Lincoln with Stalin -- for starters Lincoln was constitutionally elected where Stalin murdered his way to the top of a government imposed on Russia by the Germans!

And I know that you pro-Confederates just hate the US Constitution, but I'm going to quote it to you anyway:

• Article 3, Section 3: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

  After Confederates May 6, 1861 Declaration of War, Union citizens who gave Aid and Comfort to Confederates committed treason.

• Article 1, Section 9: "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

  The US Constitution is clear on the power of Federal Government to defeat its declared enemies.

Further, Confederates also restricted habeas corpus and arrested people suspected of treason, without much complaint from our latter-day pro-secessionists.

[BroJoeK]

Vermont Lt #179: "So, based on what you wrote, Massachusetts could not make slavery illegal in Massachusetts."

DiogenesLamp #186: "It could bar the creation of new slaves in Massachusetts.
It could do nothing about those that were already legal."

For a long time now, DiogenesLamp has absurdly argued the insane position that not only was the Taney Supreme Court's 1857 Dred-Scott decision correct, it also reflected Founders' Original Intent, regardless of what they may have said or done in 1788.

Dred-Scott effectively ruled that Southern slave-holders could take their slaves permanently to any state, North, West or South, regardless of that state's abolition laws.
It meant, for example, that slave gangs could be brought North to work in Northern factories, taking jobs from free men.

Now, so far as I know, no historian or constitutional scholar supports DiogenesLamp's ideas, but it is important to note that Northern fears, in 1858 & 1860, that the Tanney / DiogenesLamp's interpretation might prove true contributed to the Republican party resurgence.
Republican voters wanted to tell the Taney Court: not just "no", but "h*ll no!".
Indeed the power of Republican Resistance convinced many Southerners that Fire Eaters were correct in saying they must secede to protect their "peculiar institution".

Anyway, DiogenesLamp's arguments here and elsewhere identify him as something we've seldom encountered, but should take note of: a self-loathing Northerner.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The Founders did not obtain 'mutual consent' from the British, nor did they think 'mutual consent' was necessary.
They believe they had a right to be free and independent even if the United Kingdom did not agree.
They said it was a right from God for people to rule themselves if they chose."

As you well know, but refuse to acknowledge, Founders considered either of two conditions acceptable for disunion: "necessity" as in 1776 or "mutual consent" as in 1788.
Both conditions were clearly defined in their own minds from their own historical experiences, and they considered any other reasons for disunion to be "at pleasure", which not one Founder ever supported.
Instead, Founders thought secession "at pleasure" to be a form of rebellion, insurrection and/or treason, for which they had no tolerance.

All of which you know well, but refuse to acknowledge.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The Fort at Sumter was utterly useless to the Union except as a means to threaten ships coming into Charleston South Carolina to trade. "

Regardless of how useless or useful, Fort Sumter was still a Union fort manned by Union troops, one of the few in the Deep South.
Lincoln's goal was to hold Fort Sumter to bargain for something valuable, like Virginia.
As for threatening ships in Charleston, SC, that was certainly not on Lincoln's agenda in early April 1861.

DiogenesLamp: "Stopping the South from direct trade with Europe was the only thing the Fort was capable of doing, and therefore to protect the profits of those New Yorkers that controlled all such trade prior to the South declaring independence, the fort was essential as a casus belli."

If you examine a map of 1860 Southern railroads you'll see there were at least a dozen Southern ports inter-connected by the rail-net and so capable of shipping and receiving products for distribution throughout the South.
Charleston was in no way special, unique or even the largest of those Southern ports.
So whatever value Fort Sumter had, it was in no way a serious threat to the South's economy.

DiogenesLamp: "New York runs this nation today.
New York Media power elected that corrupt Chicago cretin "Barack Obama" and that disgusting corrupt con man "Bill Clinton."
Both served the interests of the New York Plutocrats who have undue influence in our government. "

But by "New York" what you really mean is: Democrats, and Democrats come from big cities in every state, especially these days from California -- San Francisco, Silicone Valley, Hollywood, etc.
On this map, blue marks the home of your "New York Power Brokers":

Note that some of your "New York Power Brokers" even live in the Deep South!

[BroJoeK]

editor-surveyor: "Cut the fluff!
There is not one word in the constitution impeding any state from seceding."

Sure, but the Constitution has plenty enough to say about rebellion, insurrection, domestic violence, invasion and treason, all of which Confederates waged on the United States.

Founders made clear in their words and deeds that disunion was acceptable under two, but only two, conditions: from necessity as in 1776 and by mutual consent as in 1788.
No Founder ever supported secession "at pleasure" which is what Deep South Fire Eaters did in early 1861.

[BroJoeK]

OIFVeteran #225: "The confederate constitution proudly proclaimed that some men were meant to be slaves to other men."

DiogenesLamp #227: "So did the US Constitution, and I wish people would stop trying to pretend it didn't..."

No it didn't, far from it.
The US Constitution never uses the word "slave", "slavery" or "institution" referring to slavery, while the Confederate constitution used those explicit words a dozen times.
Instead, the US Constitution refers to a "Person held to Service or Labour", meaning indentured servants, prisoners or slaves, while the Confederate Constitution in those places explicitly says "negro slaves".

Here is the Confederate Constitution proudly enshrining slavery:

1. "...adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves."

2. "The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States..."

3. "Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy"

4. "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

5. "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."

6. "No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs; "

7. "In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "We would have remained at peace with Canada?
I don't think you need the First World War to come to that conclusion."

Over a period of thirty-some years the US fought two wars against Canada, lost them both, but it took the second war (1812) to convince us not to go back for a round three.

Over a period of thirty-some years Germans fought two wars against the Western Allies, lost them both, but it took the Second World War to convince Germans not to go back for a round three.

By contrast, the US suffered only one Civil War because, at the end of it, we made certain Confederates would not wish to go back for a round two.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe #222: "The Dred Scott decision does not preclude the United States Government from making ownership of a slave in a Territory illegal."

DiogenesLamp #226: "The Constitution does that.
So long as a slave is held by the laws of a state, the constitution requires the slave must be surrendered back to the person to whom his labor is due."

It's not clear to me precisely where DiogenesLamp goes beyond what even Dred-Scott claimed, but clearly Northerners in 1860 feared Dred-Scott would allow Southern slave-holders to bring their slaves North to take away jobs from free men.
DiogenesLamp goes even further to claim that's just what Founders intended by their Constitution, even though none said it or acted so at the time.

Regardless, DiogenesLamp's argument is without merit.

[BroJoeK]

BJK #38: "The behavior of "the South" is fully explained by the following: they were Democrats and as such they favored powerful Federal Government to advance their own interests."

DiogenesLamp #112: "Yeah, like cutting the 75% of the taxes their 25% of the citizens were paying, while the Northern 75% of the citizens were only paying the remaining 25%."

BJK #148: "And you can cite a source for that, or just your own vivid imagination?"

DiogenesLamp #160: "I've seen your numbers before.
Even you have admitted the South was producing 50% of all the Federal revenue..."

Well... Deep South cotton represented 50% of US total exports on which no taxes were paid.
With their cotton earnings, Deep South planters purchased various goods & services from local producers, from Northern producers and from abroad.
Some of the money earned by those local & Northern producers was then also spent on foreign imports.
Most foreign imports were charged tariffs which combined represented 90+% of Federal revenues.

All told, the Deep South represented roughly 10% of US voters, shipping 50% of US exports, certainly a disproportionate amount.

Regardless, they were still Democrats and as such enjoyed the types of privileges Democrats insist on, including:

1. Disproportionate representation in Congress and the electoral college.

2. Disproportionate representation in Washington Deep State offices (i.e., Supreme Court) & spending (i.e., forts).

3. Federal enforcement of their most important institution: slavery.

4. National defense which included the Mexican war to expand the realm of slavery.

5. The lowest import tariff rates in many decades.

6. Expanding slavery's realm through SCOTUS Dred-Scott.

So my original point remains valid: Democrats then as now love a powerful national government working to support their own special interests, otherwise, not-so-much.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I note that Teddy Roosevelt also came out of New York, and immediately shocked all the cronies of that system with his vehement attacks on corruption and collusion. ...
Trump is the first existential threat to the collusion of the Uniparty that I have seen since Reagan, and so far he is proving more effective than Reagan was."

Reagan never had a majority in both houses of Congress, always had to make nice with the likes of Tip O'Neil.
And Reagan was from Hollywood, had many old friends there who'd stand up for him against the lunatics.
So Trump has a different situation.
So far seems to be holding his own, hate to think if Pubbies lose big-time in November...

DiogenesLamp: "Putting Clinton and Obama in jail would go a long ways towards accomplishing that."

Be still my beating heart. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

BJK #151: "The 16th amendment was a very different situation, fully supported by those allegedly 'conservative' white Southerners:"

DiogenesLamp: "They probably saw it as a little pay back to the bastards that had gotten rich off of their blood."

From which we can take two important admissions by DiogenesLamp:

1. The Solid Democrat South was far from "conservative" but instead wished (as Democrats always do) to use the Federal Government to enforce special privileges for Democrats.

2. Those so-called "New York Power Brokers" were remarkably ineffective at protecting their own best interests.
   How could that be if they were so all powerful?

[BroJoeK]

CodeToad: "Even the federalist #10 states the States have a right to dissolve the union."

I doubt if Federalist #10 discusses dissolving the Union, but Madison did discuss that expressly in his letter to Nicholas Trist:

• "the compact being among individuals as imbodied into States, no State can at pleasure release itself therefrom, and set up for itself.
  
• The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect.
  
• It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the terms or nature of the compact, authorizing a party to dissolve it at pleasure."

Madison was clear that two and only two conditions for dissolving the Union were acceptable:

1. From necessity as in 1776 and
2. By mutual consent as in 1788.

Secession "at pleasure" was not legitimate and was considered nothing more than rebellion, insurrection, domestic violence, invasion and/or treason.

CodeToad: "Lincoln dissolved the union and conquer Ed the States."

Rubbish & nonsense, Lincoln dissolved nothing.
The Union was never dissolved and the Confederacy was never legitimate.
Once Confederates declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861) their utter defeat was utterly necessary.

But of course, Democrats by their nature, often accuse Republicans of their own crimes, and that's what we see from CodeToad here.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The South paid the bulk of the revenues, between 72% and 83% depending upon where you get your numbers, but virtually all of that money was spent in the North, and they knew it.
This man outlines the disparity in his speech before the South Carolina Secession convention."

From your link, Rhett said this: "The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."

Only conceivably true if by "the North" you mean any states north of South Carolina.
This site includes a lengthy discussion on antebellum Federal spending, north versus south.
Crunching the numbers shows that overall "the South" came out at roughly 50%, compared to "the South's" total of 30% of US voters.
And this extra Federal spending on "the South" doubtless represents "the South's" over-representation in Congress from the Constitution's 3/5 rule.

So, how should we define "the South"?
Well, Rhett himself was from South Carolina representing the Deep South's planters' views.
In 1860 the Deep Cotton South had about 10% of US voters and shipped 50% of US exports.
So, for Deep South planters an argument might be made, as DiogenesLamp & Rbt Rhett made it, that their representation in Congress did not reflect the full value of their economic contributions.

On the other hand, the Constitution's 3/5 rule did give them gross over-representation, allowed them to dominate the national Democrat party and through it, all of Washington, DC.
In the 1850s the Deep South was the DC "Deep State" by dominating every branch of government from the US Supreme Court to the military.

So where do DiogenesLamp's statistics of "between 72% and 83%" come from?

1. First they include not just the Deep South's cotton (50%), but also tobacco grown in Border States and the North (~9%), along with several other minor commodities produced by many states but shipped through Southern ports and so allocated as "products of the South".

2. Second, they minimize the total value of US exports by excluding "specie" which in 1860 meant gold from California and silver from Nevada.

In sum, "the South" was certainly important economically, but just not as important as they imagined, a fact demonstrated during the Civil War when all commerce with Confederate states ended and yet the Union survived & prospered, doubling it's GDP from 1860 to 1865.