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.

[BroJoeK]

Mollypitcher1 #54: "The North is no longer the Industrial Center and the South is no longer the Agricultural center of the country, depending on “slave” labor.
Lincoln couldn’t afford to lose the enormous income of the South’s Tariffs.
That was his greatest concern and he expressed it.
The E.P. was his 'Excuse' and not his reason for waging war."

DiogenesLamp #121: "It was far worse than just loosing the South's tariff revenue.
Lincolns Backers in New York would have lost huge amounts of money as the natural trade between the South and Europe shifted to Southern ports, leaving New York bereft of this trade.
If the South had been allowed to be independent, it would have resulted in 80% of all Trade with North America shifting away from New York and towards Southern port cities such as Charleston and New Orleans."

Bull Snipe #126: "pure speculation."

DiogenesLamp #155: "The numbers support it.
Even if it was speculation, the Northern Newspapers of the time repeatedly voiced it, and likely a lot of Northern people believed it."

Numbers certainly don't support DiogenesLamp's "80%" claim.
Yes, Northern Democrats, erstwhile political & economic allies of the Southern Slave-Power may, may have feared such outcomes, but they were not the chief concerns expressed by most.
The first & foremost concerns by Democrat "Northern Power Brokers" were Confederate debt repudiations which began in Georgia in April 1861, then went Confederate-wide in May.
Suddenly many Democrat "Northern Power Brokers" who had considered themselves well-off had nothing.

1861 Republicans were a different group of people, more rural, more manufacturing than mercantile, more traditional, they were originally Federalists who wanted to preserve, protect & defend the Constitution against lawless secessionists.
For Republicans economics would be secondary to higher concerns.

As for the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, it was neither reason nor "excuse" for Civil War.
Rather, it was the result of war, as were the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.
Nevertheless, emancipation was important to many Unionists:

"In the beauty of the lilies[14] Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die* to make men free,[15]
While God is marching on."

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "The existence of USA was not threatened by the Civil War.
The union between the north and the south was at stake but not the USA’s existence."

In fact, as DiogenesLamp happily points out, had Confederates won they would have strong claims to states like Illinois, Indiana & Iowa whose exports shipped down the Mississippi to New Orleans.
Washington. DC, itself could become the Confederate capital, surrounded by Confederate states.
The rump US capital would once again flee north, to Philadelphia or New York.
So North America would split up into its several constituent parts and the United States would be no more:

[BroJoeK]

BrandtMichaels #83: "THINK - Without the United States remaining united how could that have changed the outcomes for WW I & II?"

DiogenesLamp #140: "That's easy.
Hundreds of millions of people would not have been killed.
The US intervention in World War I was a disaster."

Note my response in post #119 above.
As always you draw the wrong lessons from your misinterpretations of history.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Had we stayed out of WWI, there would have been no Nazi regime, and the Japanese Empire would likely have never gotten so bold.
If we had stayed out of WWI, there would have likely been no..."

Again, note my post #119 above.
As always, you draw the wrong lessons from your misinterpretations of history.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe: "No Southern or Northern citizen paid one red cent in taxes to the Federal Government."

DiogenesLamp: "Stop with the sophistry."

That's rich, coming from Mr. Sophist-ocles himself.

DiogenesLamp: "The South paid the vast bulk of the Revenue for the Federal Government, even though they only had 1/4th of the citizens of the nation."

Now there is real sophistry!
If by "the South" you mean the Deep Cotton South, then roughly 10% of voters provided 50% of the nation's exports.
By why be so generalized?
Specifically, about 1/2 of 1% of US voters (Deep South slave holders) shipped 50% of US exports.

So let's ask if DiogenesLamp believes those 1/2 of 1% should have ruled over everyone else?
And if so, why exactly?

Bull Snipe: "Southerners were perfectly free to ship all of the cotton they wanted to Europe and use British or French, or Chinese merchant ships to carry that cargo to Europe."

DiogenesLamp: "And pay huge and ruinous fines to the Federal government for doing so."

Total rubbish, as has been pointed out elsewhere, US law only specified US flag ships in intra-state commerce, not in foreign exports & imports.
Further, there was nothing preventing those intercoastal ships from being Southern owned & operated.

1860 steamer Planter, Southern owned & operated:

DiogenesLamp: "Southern Shipping and ship building companies were forced out of business by subsidies paid by the Federal government to Northern owned shipping companies and a deliberate preference from the New York shipping companies towards using North Eastern ships and shipping companies."

Federal subsidies affected only a small number of specialized ships used in carrying US mail overseas, had no effect on the many hundreds of ships needed to transport US cotton & other exports.
As to why Southern ship production declined, the rise of heavy-metal steamships didn't sit well with Southerners like, for example, Texas Senator Louis Wigfall:

"We are an agricultural people; we a primitive but civilized people.
We have no cities-we don't want them.
We have no literature-we don't need any yet.
We have no press-we are glad of it.
We have no commercial marine-no navy-we don't want them.
Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels.
We want no manufactures; we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes.
As long as we have our cotton, our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from these nations with which we are in amity."

So there is the real villain of this story: Southern planters, not ethereal "New York Power Brokers".

[BroJoeK]

GreenLanternCorps: "Read the Ordinance of Sucession for each state.
The preservation of slavery is the primary reason given."

DiogenesLamp: "That keeps getting trotted out, and it is completely misleading.
Only a few of the 11 states secession conventions issued such statements, and other statements that speak more to the real economic causes such as this one, are simply ignored because they don't fit the narrative that the Northern History book publishers prefer."

GreenLanternCorps is correct and DiogenesLamp's argument mere, well, sophistry.
At the time of the first seven states to declare secession, four issued "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of ______ from the Federal Union."
Of those, Mississippi's is entirely typical:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation...."

There is simply no disputing that whatever other economic factors may have driven the South's top 1%, a perceived Federal blow against slavery is what motivated the South's majorities to support secession.

DiogenesLamp: "Since Lincoln had offered them all the slavery they could possibly want if they just remained in the Union, how can we say they wanted to leave because they wanted to protect slavery? "

And yet more sophistry.
In early 1861 many Unionists in Congress proposed "compromises" to lure back secessionists, but none had any effect whatever.
Having committed to secession, no Fire Eater was going to allow mere logic to talk them out of it.

But for nearly two years the offer stood, the Confederates could keep slavery if they returned to the Union.
And as late as early 1865 Confederates could still have negotiated compensated abolition, but rejected it.
Instead the Confederate leadership preferred to fight on, month after month, year after year, piling up hundreds of thousands dead until they finally achieved the ultimate: Unconditional Surrender.

Go figure.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: " Lincoln had twice said that he believed that people could be independent of governments that no longer reflected their interests, and that it was a "sacred right" for people to chose independence."

DoodleDawg: "You forgot the "having the power" part.
That's where the Confederacy was lacking in their rising up."

In an 1848 speech on the Mexican War, young Abraham Lincoln philosophized:

"...Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better--
This is a most valuable, -- a most sacred right -- a right, which we hope and belive, is to liberate the world..."

Regardless of young (39) Lincoln's immature opinion, our Founders were much more experienced & knowledgeable of matters related to disunion, secession or independence.
They considered that "being inclined" or "at pleasure" were not enough to justify decisions on independence.
Instead, necessity (as in 1776) or mutual consent (1788) were required.
Anything else was disunion "at pleasure" which no Founder ever supported, young Lincoln's feelings notwithstanding.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Northern Free States insisted on the 3/5ths rule.
The Southerners wanted to count slaves as a full person for purposes of representation"

Right, slave-holders wanted their "property" counted as humans, but only for purposes of representation, certainly not as voters.
Northerners recognized that "property" was a stand-in for wealth said, in effect, "OK, if you wish to count your wealth for representation purposes, then we should also count ours -- our livestock or ships, etc."
Of course slave-holders would have none of that -- Democrats are always inconsistent -- and so settled on 3/5.

DiogenesLamp: "But pardon me for interrupting your pointless 'waving the bloody shirt' rant with a contradictory fact that blunts your rant's momentum."

Sure, I understand that you, as a self-loathing Northerner and true-blue Democrat at heart, wish to interrupt, but those reasons also make it impossible for you to present "facts", because they don't exist.

[BroJoeK]

CommerceComet: "Possibly but first you have to prove the point that different standards are appropriate."

DiogenesLamp: "So far as I can see, it is axiomatic that someone defending their homeland should be given more leeway in making hard decisions to protect themselves and their families.
Why should the invader be given any consideration?
No one is threatening their lands and homes, wives and children."

Among the many fallacies in DiogenesLamp's arguments are these: Secessionists in 1861 did not simply "defend their homeland", they invaded Union states, Union territories and Unionist regions of secessionist states.
They provoked, started & declared war against the United States, leading the Confederate Secretary of State, Robert Toombs to tell Jefferson Davis:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[15]

Toombs was right, Jefferson Davis and DiogenesLamp were wrong.

CommerceComet: "Lincoln felt that the union must be preserved."

DiogenesLamp: "As a domineering Husband would think his wife must not be allowed to leave.
Shouldn't it be up to the wife?"

In fact, the metaphorical "wife" was allowed to leave peacefully, but she soon returned with her posse and guns a blazing to take as much of the property as she could grab.

DiogenesLamp: "Someone leaving you is not a condition of 'desperation' unless you are some sort of psychotic.
Someone raining body blows on you and injuring you grievously is a condition that would be desperate, but someone saying they no longer wish to associate with you is not going to constitute a threat to your life."

Right, body blows, such as:

1. Violent seizures of dozens of Federal forts, ships, arsenals & mints,
   
2. Threatening, firing on & killing Union officials, some in Union states,
   
3. Declaration of War against the United States (May 6, 1861)
   
4. Invasions of Union states & territories.

Those "body blows"

DiogenesLamp: "This "Preserve the Union" is not a very good justification for killing 750,000 people in direct war, and perhaps as many as 2 million in subsequent starvation, disease, and loss of life from exposure.
It is also not a good reason to break the Federalism which was originally established by the founders."

The alleged "2 million" is a statistical fantasy.
Regardless, all responsibility for every death belongs to the Confederate leadership which provoked, started, declared & continued to wage war against the United States long after it served any conceivable purpose.

[Mollypitcher1]

As for the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, it was neither reason nor “excuse” for Civil War.
Rather, it was the result of war, as were the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.
Nevertheless, emancipation was important to many Unionists:
........................................................
Lincoln had to come up with an excuse and settled on emancipation as the best way to sway public opinion away from the states rights issue as well as the monetary issues. Some southern states had been GUARANTEED the right to withdraw from the Union should they see fit AFTER agreeing to the Constitution and signing it. What happened to that guarantee? Lincoln ignored it.
You state emancipation was important to many Unionists. IF it was so important, why were slaves in the Unionist (northern states) NOT included in the Emancipation?????? Not to include the slave brokers located in the north!!!

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln initiated the war by sending a war fleet to attack them."

Civil War was first provoked by Confederate threats against Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.
Lincoln's resupply ships were not intended to attack confederates, nor did they.
Instead, Confederates attacked Fort Sumter -- an action recognized for what it was by some Confederates:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[15]

DiogenesLamp: "You have a funny way of looking at a fight where one side has a four to one advantage over the other just in people, let alone in material and logistics."

Confederates not only started Civil War, they more importantly continued fighting, month after month, year after year, until they achieved the ultimate: Unconditional Surrender.

That was Jefferson Davis' choice, not Lincoln's.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "If you're going to engage in armed rebellion then it helps if you win."

DiogenesLamp: "You keep using that word "rebellion".
While it might accurately apply to what the founders did to Britain, after establishing the principle that people had a right to independence, it was no longer 'rebellion' to obtain that which the founders declared to be a right.
It was rebellion to oppose it. "

Here we see DiogenesLamp expose his true dual nature as, on the one hand a self-loathing Northerner and second, a true-blue Democrat at heart.
How so a Democrat, you ask?
Because by their nature, by their political DNA, Democrats must always redefine or corrupt any words which don't suite their own purposes, and accuse Republicans of what they themselves are most guilty.

They just can't help it, can't stop themselves from doing it, it's just "who they are" as Democrats.
And here we see that is also the deep political tradition from which our FRiend DiogenesLamp springs.

I think we should have compassion for him, but never, ever take it seriously.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln had previously supported the right of Texas to become independent of Mexico.
Apparently he was against the right of Texas to be independent of him."

The fact of history remains that neither President Buchanan nor President Lincoln lifted a finger to prevent Deep South states from first declaring secession, then forming a Confederacy, establishing a Confederate constitution, Confederate national government & military forces.
Both only acted (Buchanan ineffectively) to stop Confederate aggression against the United States.

Both Democrat Buchanan and Republican Lincoln believed that unapproved unilateral declarations of secession were wrong, legally, but neither believed the United States could take military actions on that basis alone.

So Civil War was not the result of declarations of secession, but rather of Confederate aggression against the United States.

[BroJoeK]

CodeToad: "the FF we’re paranoid, and rightly so, that the States had sovereignty and may one day exercise it.
The ENTIRE point of creating the Constitution was just that."

No, our Founders were far from "paranoid", but learned by bitter experience that the old Articles of Confederation were inadequate for United States needs.
It was not in the least about "may one day", but rather their immediate requirements to deal with such events as Shay's Rebellion and various war debts.

It wasn't "paranoia" which drove them, but bitter experience.

[CodeToad]

You need to read some more. They stated very clearly they felt the States were going to split and that would be the end of the union.

Stop being so damned juvenile and argumentative.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You can tell it is a product of it's era, but the man (New Yorker Thomas Prentice Kettell) puts forth an Interesting way of looking at things."

Worth noting here that Kettell's 1856 book "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits" was not intended to justify secession, but was used by secessionists for that purpose.
It is a foundation document on which many of DiogenesLamp's misunderstandings are based.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I keep pointing out that Lincoln offered them all the slavery they could want, but apparently that wasn't the sticking point for remaining in the Union."

Protecting slavery was the issue used to sell secession to the vast majority of Southerners.
Once accomplished, then slavery became secondary to the existential question of preserving the Confederacy.

Still a Confederacy without slavery was inconceivable to Confederate leaders, thus preventing them from following the Union's example and enlisting African-Americans as real soldiers.

So it's simply disingenuous to pretend slavery was not important to Confederates especially, but also to Unionists.

[x]

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."

What Diogenes doesn't take away from this: Americans will elect a conservative president, if the conservative candidate is New York City (or Los Angeles) enough.

That disposes of all his relentless NYC bashing.

[CommerceComet]

BroJoeK,

Thanks for responding to that. I've been busy the last few days and frankly, there was so much wrong with his comments and analogies, I wasn't quite sure where to start. Proverbs 26:4 came to my mind.

[BroJoeK]

Bulwyf: "I’m not saying it would of shifted away from agriculture, I’m saying machines would of taken over agricultural, like it did everywhere else."

But there's no evidence suggesting that either factories or machines would have ended slavery, just the opposite.
By 1860 slaves were working in factories and operating machines of that day, nothing suggests they could not have continued so indefinitely.
Had there been no Civil War, or had Confederates won it, then slavery itself, that "peculiar institution" would have seen (to pervert Lincoln's famous words):

"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom slavery — and that government of the people slave-holders, by the people slave-holders, for the people slave-holders, shall not perish from the earth."

Today we imagine Southern slavery in 1860 was dead or dying, but nobody at the time believed that.