REMEMBERING MR. LINCOLN

Powerline ^ | 12 Feb 2024 | Scott Johnson

[Rummyfan]

Today is the anniversary of the birth of America’s great or greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are created equal.

In 1858 Lincoln attained national prominence in the Republican Party as the result of the contest for the Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas. It was Lincoln’s losing campaign against Douglas that made him a figure of sufficient prominence that he could be the party’s 1860 presidential nominee.

At the convention of the Illinois Republican Party in June, Lincoln was the unanimous choice to run against Douglas. After declaring him their candidate late on the afternoon of June 16, the entire convention returned that evening to hear Lincoln speak. Accepting the convention’s nomination, Lincoln gave one of the most incendiary speeches in American history.

Lincoln electrified the convention, asserting that the institution of slavery had made the United States “a house divided against itself.” Slavery would either be extirpated or become lawful nationwide, Lincoln predicted, provocatively quoting scriptural authority to the effect that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Demonstrating how it “changed the course of history,” Harry Jaffa calls it “[t]he speech that changed the world.”

[jmacusa]

The only fool here is you Confederate.

Only a complete and utter moron keeps carrying a torch for an army of losers one hundred and sixty nine years after the fact.

[jmacusa]

And thanks for all the free parking in your head Reb.

[woodpusher]

Here is a short video on 16A which you may find interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEXD8i8u-fY

Income Tax Law History [9m59s]

Robert Barnes

[FLT-bird]

No. Your side started the war with it's; intent to preserve slavery and thus began by opening fire on Ft.Sumter. Just like a little girl. Joe K kicks your butt with knowledge, fats and the history as it is in truth. And like some little petulant, foot stomping little cry baby who can't handle the truth of history you come to try and get a rise out of me. You're a loser. I should have known better to rattling your cage.

Nope! Lincoln started the war - deliberately. Lincoln and indeed the Northern states were only too happy to expressly protect slavery in the US Constitution effectively forever. Its hilarious the way you keep trying to fluff your buddy here pretending that he "won" a debate when he clearly did not.

As always, you're just a bitter old drunk who has a bitch fit anytime somebody doesn't go along with his revisionist history BS.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird on historian Neely's claim that numbers of political imprisonments in the Confederacy were unchanged whether Confederate congress had authorized them or not:
"Its up to him to prove his claims - not up to me to disprove them."

This is Neely's book, from 1999:

Here is the Amazon description:

"On the day Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate authorities, General Braxton Bragg reacted to a newspaper report that might have revealed the position of gun emplacements by placing the correspondent, a Southern loyalist, under arrest.
Thus the Confederate army's first detention of a citizen occurred before President Lincoln had even called out troops to suppress the rebellion.
During the civil war that followed, not a day would pass when Confederate military prisons did not contain political prisoners.

"Based on the discovery of records of over four thousand of these prisoners, Mark E. Neely Jr.'s new book undermines the common understanding that Jefferson Davis and the Confederates were scrupulous in their respect for constitutional rights while Lincoln and the Unionists regularly violated the rights of dissenters.
Neely reveals for the first time the extent of repression of Unionists and other civilians in the Confederacy, and uncovers and marshals convincing evidence that Southerners were as ready as their Northern counterparts to give up civil liberties in response to the real or imagined threats of wartime.

From the onset of hostilities, the exploits of drunken recruits prompted communities from Selma to Lynchburg to beg the Richmond government to impose martial law.
Southern citizens resigned themselves to a passport system for domestic travel similar to the system of passes imposed on enslaved and free blacks before the war.
These restrictive measures made commerce difficult and constrained religious activity.
As one Virginian complained, 'This struggle was begun in defence of Constitutional Liberty which we could not get in the United States.'
The Davis administration countered that the passport system was essential to prevent desertion from the army, and most Southerners accepted the passports as a necessary inconvenience, ignoring the irony that the necessities of national mobilization had changed their government from a states'-rights confederacy to a powerful, centralized authority.

After the war the records of men imprisoned by this authority were lost through a combination of happenstance and deliberate obfuscation.
Their discovery and subtle interpretation by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian explodes one of the remaining myths of Lost Cause historiography, revealing Jefferson Davis as a calculated manipulator of the symbols of liberty."

So, I'm betting Neely did prove his case, though naturally, if you refuse to read his book, you can always claim there's "no evidence" to support it.
I'm betting that's just what you'll do.

FLT-bird: "Strawman alert! I never said that."

Well then, if you are perfectly willing to confess there was just as much "tyranny" under Jefferson Davis' Confederacy as in Lincoln's Union, then I think we've reached common ground and this particular debate is more-or-less over.

FLT-bird: "only if you believe a number very close to the extreme low estimate of those jailed without charge or trial or at best trial before military tribunal in the union."

This is Neely's 1991 book on Union Civil Liberties:

I've seen no evidence to support your higher numbers, and if they amount to nothing more than statistical projections, then we can easily do the same with Confederate numbers and the ratios remain unchanged.

Here is Amazon's book description of Neely's book:

"If Abraham Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator, he was also the only president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.
Indeed, Lincoln's record on the Constitution and individual rights has fueled a century of debate, from charges that Democrats were singled out for harrassment to Gore Vidal's depiction of Lincoln as an "absolute dictator."
Now, in The Fate of Liberty, one of America's leading authorities on Lincoln wades straight into this controversy, showing just who was jailed and why, even as he explores the whole range of Lincoln's constitutional policies.
Mark Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events: the threat to Washington as Maryland flirted with secession, distintegrating public order in the border states, corruption among military contractors, the occupation of hostile Confederate territory, contraband trade with the South, and the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history.
Drawing upon letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed.
Lincoln emerges from this account with this legendary statesmanship intact--mindful of political realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently.
In addition, Neely explores the abuses of power under the regime of martial law: the routine torture of suspected deserters, widespread antisemitism among Union generals and officials, the common practice of seizing civilian hostages.
He finds that though the system of military justice was flawed, it suffered less from merciless zeal, or political partisanship, than from inefficiency and the friction and complexities of modern war.
Drawing on a deep understanding of this unique period, Neely takes a comprehensive look at the issues of civil liberties during Lincoln's administration, placing them firmly in the political context of the time.
Written with keen insight and an intimate grasp of the original sources, The Fate of Liberty offers a vivid picture of the crises and chaos of a nation at war with itself, changing our understanding of this president and his most controversial policies."

FLT-bird: "Except you have failed to provide any of this supposed "existing evidence""

I can point you to two books full of "existing evidence" but, of course, I can't force you to read them.

FLT-bird on CSA Declaration of War: "Yes I did.
Go back and look.
Hell, ask even Google which has a hardcore pro federal government/pro leftist bias."

Your repeated claims notwithstanding, you've provided no link and no evidence to prove that the Confederacy never declared war on the United States.
My link, and here it is yet again, shows you the actual document.
All you have to do is read it, regardless of what google tells you.

By the way -- and this might be a good place to mention it -- I've now done many Bing AI inquiries and sometimes they are very helpful, but other times the results are complete nonsense.
How often for each?
About half and half, I'd say.
So, neither google nor Bing AI is ever a magic truth-telling answer machine.
Yes, sometimes it's OK, but just as often it's pure nonsense.

FLT-bird: "Except that link did not show an actual declaration of war."

And yet, the Confederate document of May 6, 1861 calls itself:

"CHAP. III.--An act recognizing the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States; and concerning letters of marque, prizes and prize goods. May 6, 1861."

So, are you going to quibble over the wording?
Then you might compare it to this wording from Pres. FD Roosevelt on December 8, 1941:

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."

Terms of art do not make it any less a declaration of war in fact and in law.

FLT-bird: "Yes, levying war against the states.
That's what Lincoln did."

Not against the United States, that was Jefferson Davis & company.
I know you have serious trouble remembering basic facts.

FLT-bird: "Waging war against the states is considered treason.
But of course, the CSA did not declare war and was only seeking to defend themselves.
It was the Lincoln administration which launched a war of aggression against the Southern States."

Only willful self-inflicted blindness prevents you from seeing the real facts which are:

1. Jefferson Davis ordered Fort Sumter be "reduced" by CSA Gen. Beaureguard, if it didn't surrender, long before any Union "war fleet" began to arrive, offshore from Charleston, late on April 11.
   On April 3, Davis also ordered Fort Pickens to be captured and occupied by CSA Gen. Bragg long before any shots were fired there.

2. On May 6, 1861 the Confederate Congress formally declared war against the United States, though for inexplicable reasons, our Lost Causers all insist that clear Declaration of War was not really a Declaration of War.

3. The war's first actual invasions were by Confederate forces into Union Missouri and West Virginia.

4. In the Civil War's first year more battles were fought in the Union than in the Confederacy and more Confederate soldiers died invading Union soil than in defending their own states.

FLT-bird: "No it didn't.
The CSA never sought to rule over the US or any Northern states.
They merely sought to defend themselves after being attacked by the Lincoln administration.
In an actual civil war, two sides fight for control over the central government.
That is not what happened.
It was no more a civil war than the 1775-1783 affair was.
It was a war of Independence."

Except that all of that is just Lost Cause propaganda lies, none of it is factually true.
The truth is that Confederates invaded and contested many Union states, especially in the war's first year or two, including:

1. Maryland
2. Pennsylvania
3. West Virginia
4. Ohio
5. Indiana
6. Kentucky
7. Missouri
8. Kansas
9. Oklahoma
10. New Mexico

In 1864 Jubal Early threatened Washington, DC, and Confederate guerilla forces operated in Union states of California, Colorado and Vermont.
So it was, by definition, a civil war, regardless of whatever other names you might chose to call it.

"A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.[3]"

FLT-bird re: Crazy-Roger: "LOL!
Thanks for proving my point.
He made some decisions you didn't like and knew that Lincoln had signed an arrest warrant for him.
So you claim he must be "crazy".
By the way, a majority of the SCOTUS ruled that way in Dred Scott.
Taney was not a majority all by himself."

The vast majority of SCOTUS did support its Dred Scott decision, but only Taney himself, and one or two others, supported the full flowering of Taney's insane anti-black opinions.
The alleged Lincoln arrest warrant is an unconfirmed rumor, which a few crazy people, then and now, took seriously, but which had no proven physical existence, ever.

FLT-bird: "Nope! I told you the book that listed it.
Feel free to read for yourself."

Let's see that link again.
Regarding estimates of US Civil War political arrests, with habeas corpus denied, I'll read your book when you read mine. 😂

FLT-bird: "Refusing to deliver papers is effectively censoring them in the same way that denying someone a platform to express their views is censoring them."

I'll repeat -- the reason I know better is because many years ago I was a paper boy delivering newspapers -- without any connection to the US Post Office.
Newspapers did not use and did not need the US Post Office to get delivered.
The Post Office could have refused to deliver my papers and it would have had no effect on anything we did.

That's why I'm saying, Union Post Office actions may have inconvenienced some of those alleged 100 anti-Lincoln newspapers, but he didn't "shut them down".
Nor did the Confederacy ever allow disloyal newspapers to publish there.

So, if you call that "tyranny" for one, then it's just as much "tyranny" for both and "tyranny" also in other wars where censorship was practiced.

FLT-bird: "It happened in the CSA but much like the arbitrary arrests and suspension of habeas corpus, it happened on nothing like the scale it happened in the Northern States.
Newspapers in the Southern states were if anything far more harsh in their criticisms of President Davis than Northern newspapers dared to be of Lincoln."

That is your claim, based on no evidence or statistics whatever.

FLT-bird: "Those are your numbers.
What is not mentioned, is that there was no shortage of food or medicine in the Northern states while there was in the Southern States as a result of the naval blockade."

Confederates had enough food for their own populations and armies, but couldn't bring themselves to feed their POWs.
And my understanding is that very few Confederate deaths in Northern POW camps came from starvation, but rather from diseases and exposure in cold Northern winters.

The statistics clearly say that POWs were mistreated on both sides and anyone can debate whether one side or the other was measurably worse.

FLT-bird: "They offered to let the Union pick up the particularly sick and wounded POWs and that offer was ignored for months while they were dying.
the high death tolls of Confederates in Union POW camps like Camp Douglas, Hellmira and Point Lookout have no such excuse.
They could have been adequately fed, housed and provided with adequate medical care.
The federal government just didn't want to.
That is in addition to widespread reports of deliberate murder and cruelty I've quoted before."

I won't attempt to defend anything in any of those CW POW camps, except to point out that some were much worse than others, and that overall something like 85% of prisoners on both sides did survive their experiences.

For comparisons, about 99% of white Americans survived Nazi POW camps, though for African Americans that number was much worse, perhaps even the reverse.
Survival of Soviet POWs in Nazi camps was less than 50%.
American survival in Japanese POW camps was only around 70%.
There were few Japanese POWs in allied camps and nearly all survived the war.

The politics which ended POW paroles and prisoner exchanges are too mind-boggling for me to really understand.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "No, they were just as sovereign.
They merely delegated some of their sovereign rights to the newly created federal government for as long as they saw fit."

In reality, every delegated power was a reduction in a state's sovereignty, and there was nothing in any of our Founding documents about a future expiration date.

FLT-bird: "The CSA did what it could to build a navy but it had to start from scratch while defending itself against invasion so it didn't have that many ships."

Not even close.
By my count the CSA had nearly 400 ships & boats in total, of which 225 were CSA Navy and another 156 were civilian privateers, including:

CSA Navy:

1. 31 Ironclad steam batteries
2. 3 Ironclad floating batteries
3. 4 Wooden floating batteries
4. 19 Wooden cruisers
5. 7 Ironclad cruisers
6. 88 Gunboats
7. 12 Torpedo/submarine boats
8. 11 Blockade Runners
9. 26 Steamers
10. 8 Transports
11. 4 Cutters
12. 1 Hospital ship
13. 11 Tenders and tugs

    225 Total CSA navy vessels.

Civilian privateers:

1. 39 Privateers
2. 4 Submarines
3. 3 Steamers
4. 5 Transports
5. 54 Blockade runners
6. 21 Blockade runners -- foreign owned
7. 19 Riverboats
8. 11 others misc. categories

   156 CSA Civilian privateers

FLT-bird: "But in fact they already had invaded South Carolina's sovereign territory and their orders were to invade South Carolina's sovereign territory to reinforce the illegal squatters in Fort Sumter."

Of course, all that is just Lost Causer nonsense.
In fact, there was no "invasion" and no "squatters" any more than there is today in Guantanamo, Cuba when the US sends ships to resupply & reinforce our base there.

FLT-bird: "No he didn't.
He merely intended to evict the illegal squatters as any leader of any country would."

By any definition in any book in history, Davis firing on Union forces in Union Fort Sumter was an act of war and/or rebellion, and Davis 100% knew & understood that.

So why our Lost Causers would constantly lie about it is beyond any reasonable comprehension.

[FLT-bird]

"On the day Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate authorities, General Braxton Bragg reacted to a newspaper report that might have revealed the position of gun emplacements by placing the correspondent, a Southern loyalist, under arrest. Thus the Confederate army's first detention of a citizen occurred before President Lincoln had even called out troops to suppress the rebellion. During the civil war that followed, not a day would pass when Confederate military prisons did not contain political prisoners. "Based on the discovery of records of over four thousand of these prisoners, Mark E. Neely Jr.'s new book undermines the common understanding that Jefferson Davis and the Confederates were scrupulous in their respect for constitutional rights while Lincoln and the Unionists regularly violated the rights of dissenters. Neely reveals for the first time the extent of repression of Unionists and other civilians in the Confederacy, and uncovers and marshals convincing evidence that Southerners were as ready as their Northern counterparts to give up civil liberties in response to the real or imagined threats of wartime............blah blah blah So, I'm betting Neely did prove his case, though naturally, if you refuse to read his book, you can always claim there's "no evidence" to support it. I'm betting that's just what you'll do.

Nobody has ever denied that civil liberties were infringed upon in the CSA. They clearly were. It was not however on nearly as large of a scale as happened in the Union under Lincoln. So no, he didn't "prove his case" by citing some instances of civil liberties being infringed upon in the Southern states since nobody ever argued that this did not happen. The question was how much in each comparatively.

Well then, if you are perfectly willing to confess there was just as much "tyranny" under Jefferson Davis' Confederacy as in Lincoln's Union, then I think we've reached common ground and this particular debate is more-or-less over.

But there wasn't nearly as much under Jefferson Davis as there was under Abe Lincoln. So no, I'm not going to "confess" to something that isn't true.

This is Neely's 1991 book on Union Civil Liberties: I've seen no evidence to support your higher numbers, and if they amount to nothing more than statistical projections, then we can easily do the same with Confederate numbers and the ratios remain unchanged.

Historians do not know exactly how many people the government arrested for antiwar protests during the Civil War, although estimates vary from just over 13,000 to as many as 38,000.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/arrest-arbitrary-during-civil-war

It was been estimated that between 14,000 and 38,000 were imprisoned and denied access to Habeas Corpus during the war.

https://www.clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/lincolns-suspension-of-habeas-corpus/

As you can see by doing any kind of research of your own, this wasn't an estimate I just invented.

I can point you to two books full of "existing evidence" but, of course, I can't force you to read them.

You can cite a couple of PC Revisionists? LOL! I can cite others who disagree. Though of course, you won't read them.

Your repeated claims notwithstanding, you've provided no link and no evidence to prove that the Confederacy never declared war on the United States. My link, and here it is yet again, shows you the actual document. All you have to do is read it, regardless of what google tells you.

How does one prove a negative? You have not provided any document which shows that the CSA declared war. The reason you have not is because they did not.

So, neither google nor Bing AI is ever a magic truth-telling answer machine. Yes, sometimes it's OK, but just as often it's pure nonsense.

Agree there. Try Yandex or some other search engine not controlled by Big Tech. You will be simply amazed at the differences in the search results for any remotely political topic......which shows you how much the search results for Google/Bing/Yahoo/DDG etc are "curated".

And yet, the Confederate document of May 6, 1861 calls itself: "CHAP. III.--An act recognizing the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States; and concerning letters of marque, prizes and prize goods. May 6, 1861." So, are you going to quibble over the wording?

They recognized the existence of conflict. Note they did not declare war.

Then you might compare it to this wording from Pres. FD Roosevelt on December 8, 1941: "I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire." Terms of art do not make it any less a declaration of war in fact and in law.Did you notice the part where FDR asked for a formal declaration of war from the Congress? The Confederate Congress never issued a declaration of war.

Not against the United States

but the constitution does not say the United States. The Constitution says "against them"....ie the states - who were the parties to the constitution after all.

that was Jefferson Davis & company.

No they didn't. They were merely defending themselves from attack. They never sought to rule over the Northern states, to seize any of their territory, etc. They were not fighting a war of aggression. It was Lincoln and the Union which were doing that.

I know you have serious trouble remembering basic facts.,/P>

This is what shrinks call "projection"

Only willful self-inflicted blindness prevents you from seeing the real facts which are: Jefferson Davis ordered Fort Sumter be "reduced" by CSA Gen. Beaureguard, if it didn't surrender, long before any Union "war fleet" began to arrive, offshore from Charleston, late on April 11. On April 3, Davis also ordered Fort Pickens to be captured and occupied by CSA Gen. Bragg long before any shots were fired there.

Only willful blindness or dishonesty prevents you from admitting that federal warships invaded South Carolina's territory. Lincoln sent a heavily armed fleet of warships to invade South Carolina's territory again. Illegal squatters representing the federal government were occupying the sovereign territory of South Carolina and Florida.

On May 6, 1861 the Confederate Congress formally declared war against the United States, though for inexplicable reasons, our Lost Causers all insist that clear Declaration of War was not really a Declaration of War.

No they didn't. This is just a lie on your part.

The war's first actual invasions were by Confederate forces into Union Missouri and West Virginia.,/p>

Yet another lie on your part. The first invasions were by federal warships into South Carolina's territorial waters.

Except that all of that is just Lost Cause propaganda lies, none of it is factually true.,/p>

Except that is just PC Revisionist propaganda and lies. None of it is true.

In 1864 Jubal Early threatened Washington, DC, and Confederate guerilla forces operated in Union states of California, Colorado and Vermont.

Once Lincoln started the war, all bets were off. That however does not mean that he didn't start the war or that the Union was not waging a war of aggression. He did and they did exactly that.

So it was, by definition, a civil war, regardless of whatever other names you might chose to call it.

No it wasn't. Again, the CSA never sought to take control over the federal government. Nor did it seek to impose its rule on the Northern states. What they were fighting was a war of independence. They would have been perfectly happy to depart in peace. They tried to do exactly that. It was Lincoln who insisted upon war.

"A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.[3]"

This definition is false. There is a difference between a war of independence a la the 13 colonies from Britain or the Southern states from the US vs a true civil war for control over the central government a la the English Civil war, the Spanish Civil War, the Russian Civil War the Chinese Civil War, etc. The protagonists have completely different aims.

Thanks for proving my point.

the only point you proved is that you resort to namecalling because you disagree with him.

The vast majority of SCOTUS did support its Dred Scott decision, but only Taney himself, and one or two others, supported the full flowering of Taney's insane anti-black opinions.

Guess what. anti Black opinions were the absolute norm for most White people in the mid 19th century - North....South....European....wherever. It was a time we in our modern world would consider to be both very racist as well as very sexist. Taney's opinions were not unusual for the time. Lincoln himself was a flaming racist.

The alleged Lincoln arrest warrant is an unconfirmed rumor, which a few crazy people, then and now, took seriously, but which had no proven physical existence, ever.

It has been confirmed by multiple people. Its just inconvenient for your politics.

Regarding estimates of US Civil War political arrests, with habeas corpus denied, I'll read your book when you read mine. 😂

I provided two more quotes and links to the 38,000 number. Here's yet another:

Estimates of the number of civilians arrested by military authorities during the Civil War range from 13,000 to 38,000

https://constitutingamerica.org/essay-54-ex-parte-vallandigham-1864-ex-parte-milligan-1866-guest-essayist-gennie-westbrook/

I'll repeat -- the reason I know better is because many years ago I was a paper boy delivering newspapers -- without any connection to the US Post Office. Newspapers did not use and did not need the US Post Office to get delivered. The Post Office could have refused to deliver my papers and it would have had no effect on anything we did.,/p>

I'll repeat, Lincoln shut down over 100 opposition newspapers and censored all telegraph traffic.

Nor did the Confederacy ever allow disloyal newspapers to publish there.

Just as with the arbitrary arrests, they happened in the CSA too, but on a significantly smaller scale than in the Union.

So, if you call that "tyranny" for one, then it's just as much "tyranny" for both and "tyranny" also in other wars where censorship was practiced.

The Confederate government's hands were not clean when it came to scrupulously upholding civil liberties and I do not claim they were. They just weren't as bad as the Union government when it came to repression and censorship.

That is your claim, based on no evidence or statistics whatever.,/p>

You've claimed the opposite based on no evidence. I have provided quotes from even PC Revisionists supporting the fact that the Confederate authorities were not as oppressive as Union authorities were.

Confederates had enough food for their own populations and armies, but couldn't bring themselves to feed their POWs.,/p>

WOW! you really are ignorant. The Confederates definitely did not have enough food for their own populations and armies. You really need to study more.

And my understanding is that very few Confederate deaths in Northern POW camps came from starvation, but rather from diseases and exposure in cold Northern winters.

Few were outright starved to death. But they were starved to the point that they were weakened and thus far more susceptible to disease. Disease killed more people than outright murder in the Nazi death camps too - for the same reason. People were weakened after having been deliberately starved.

The statistics clearly say that POWs were mistreated on both sides and anyone can debate whether one side or the other was measurably worse.

One side had numerous instances of cruelty and deliberately starved prisoners and denied them medicine despite there being no shortage there. The other side had dire shortages of food and medicine which accounted for the vast majority of the deaths. Again, they even offered to let the Union send their own doctors with their own medicine to treat Union POWs and were ignored. Conditions in those camps were terrible but they tried to alleviate it.

[FLT-bird]

In reality, every delegated power was a reduction in a state's sovereignty, and there was nothing in any of our Founding documents about a future expiration date.

No it wasn't. In law, a superior can delegate some of his rights to a subordinate. He still retains those rights in full and can resume them.

Not even close. By my count the CSA had nearly 400 ships & boats in total, of which 225 were CSA Navy and another 156 were civilian privateers, including: CSA Navy: 31 Ironclad steam batteries 3 Ironclad floating batteries 4 Wooden floating batteries 19 Wooden cruisers 7 Ironclad cruisers 88 Gunboats 12 Torpedo/submarine boats 11 Blockade Runners 26 Steamers 8 Transports 4 Cutters 1 Hospital ship 11 Tenders and tugs 225 Total CSA navy vessels. Civilian privateers: 39 Privateers 4 Submarines 3 Steamers 5 Transports 54 Blockade runners 21 Blockade runners -- foreign owned 19 Riverboats 11 others misc. categories 156 CSA Civilian privateers

As I said. The CSA did what it could to build a navy but it had had no time to build one up prior to the war and the Navy took 2nd priority to the Army during the war so it had limited resources to work with. Also remember, due to the Navigation Acts from early on in the country, Shipbuilding in the Northeast had been subsidized and built up.

Of course, all that is just Lost Causer nonsense. In fact, there was no "invasion" and no "squatters" any more than there is today in Guantanamo, Cuba when the US sends ships to resupply & reinforce our base there.

Of course all of that is just PC Revisionist propaganda. There had been an invasion and there were illegal squatters occupying sovereign South Carolina and Florida territory. The US holds Guantanamo as per a lease agreement in a treaty between the US and Cuba. Whether the current regime in Cuba likes it or not, they are the successor government to the one before and therefore inherit the treaty. There was no such treaty between the Union and South Carolina or Florida.

By any definition in any book in history, Davis firing on Union forces in Union Fort Sumter was an act of war and/or rebellion, and Davis 100% knew & understood that.

By any definition in any book in history, having warships repeatedly invade the territorial waters of another country is an act of war and Lincoln 100% knew and understood that.

So why our Lost Causers would constantly lie about it is beyond any reasonable comprehension.,/p>

Why PC Revisionists constantly lie about it is quite obvious. It doesn't suit their narrative.

[jmacusa]

No.It was Davis's intention to start a war one way or another.

And he did.Mine is not a ‘’revisionist history. It is the history of what happened on April 12, 1861. And by the way you cretinous yahoo I'll be sober 34 years this very month. So shut your big fat mouth with the 'bitter old drunk'' bs.

[FLT-bird]

No.It was Davis's intention to start a war one way or another. And he did.Mine is not a ‘’revisionist history. It is the history of what happened on April 12, 1861. And by the way you cretinous yahoo I'll be sober 34 years this very month. So shut your big fat mouth with the 'bitter old drunk'' bs.

No. It was Lincoln who started the war - quite deliberately. To say otherwise is revisionist history. Lincoln's own letter to his naval commander and both of his personal secretaries confirm it you lying moron.

[jmacusa]

No matter how many times you get schooled by Joe K you still can’t get it through your head or refuse to get it.

Lincoln did not start the war as it was Davis’s intention to start the war.

But you’ll never accept this.

You’re side lost a war it started and nothing will ever change that.

Now go finish the load you started tying on.
That’s about the only thing you seem to have talent for.

[FLT-bird]

No matter how many times you get schooled by Joe K you still can’t get it through your head or refuse to get it

Well since I've never been "schooled" by him even once....

Lincoln did not start the war as it was Davis’s intention to start the war.

Nope! Lincoln started the war - deliberately.

But you’ll never accept this.

Of course not, because its not true.

You’re side lost a war it started and nothing will ever change that.

Lincoln started it.

Now go finish the load you started tying on. That’s about the only thing you seem to have talent for.

the drunkard here is you.

[Captain Peter Blood]

The reasons for the outbreak of the Civil war are complicated and slavery was only one component and maybe not a major one at that.

I have come across a couple of new books on the subject by Thomas Lorenzo that indicate it was the Tariffs aimed at the southern states that might have been a big reason, those tariffs were instituted by the North through Congress which Lincoln supported. So not might have been more an economic war.

[jmacusa]

You are truly dead from the neck up.

Any more at home like you?

Did you not read that I’m over thirty years off the sauce?

You need to have a few dozen. Maybe things will look better for you through rose colored eyeballs.

[FLT-bird]

Yep. The tariff was a huge issue. Remember, the Tariff of Abominations caused the Nullification Crisis a generation earlier. The Morrill Tariff that Lincoln supported and which Northern corporate interests pushed through, was going to take tariff rates right back to where they were under the Tariff of Abominations which was ruining the South’s economy.

[FLT-bird]

You are truly dead from the neck up.

Tell ya what. I'll compare my IQ to yours any day.

Any more at home like you?

Smart? Educated? Sure. We all are.

Did you not read that I’m over thirty years off the sauce?

You act like an idiot drunkard so its hard to tell.

You need to have a few dozen. Maybe things will look better for you through rose colored eyeballs.

I'll leave the angry drunk idiot posting to you. You're so good at it.

[jmacusa]

Yeah.Educated to believe the North started the war and too stupid,like you to understand I haven’t had an alcoholic drink in 34 years.

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher quoting Worden: "I left Washington City on the morning of April 7, with a communication from the Secretary of the Navy to Captain Adams, of the United States ship Sabine,"

Notice the date, April 7.
But already on April 3 Jefferson Davis ordered CSA Gen Bragg to militarily assault and capture Fort Pickens when he was ready.

Everything else is irrelevant.

"There would be to us an advantage in so placing them [Lincoln] that an attack by them [Lincoln] would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison [Forts Sumter or Pickens] that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations.

"The case of Pensacola, [Ft. Pickens], then is reduced [to] the more palpable elements of a military problem and your measures may without disturbing views be directed to the capture of Fort Pickens and the defence of the harbor.
You will soon have I hope a force sufficient to occupy all the points necessary for that end.
As many additional troops as may be required can be promptly furnished."
[Jefferson Davis to Braxton Bragg, 3 Apr 1861]

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher: "As for United States territorial waters, they extend twelve miles off shore."

In 1861 "territorial waters" were considered to be the range of coastal cannon fire -- a couple of miles at most.

And although our Lost Cause FRiend FLT-bird seems unable to articulate his argument, this cannon shot range measure of "territorial waters" is how we know Democrat Pres. Buchanan's Star of the West mission to resupply Fort Sumter on January 9, 1861, did enter "territorial waters", since SC batteries fired and hit the unarmed civilian merchant steamship three times.

At the Battle of Fort Sumter, on April 12, no Confederate batteries fired on any Union ships, clearly telling us they were outside South Carolina's alleged "territorial waters".

woodpusher: "The important point is your quoted material contains no order to assault or take Fort Pickens, and Bragg made no such assault."

Only people blinded by Lost Cause Lies can fail to understand Jefferson Davis' clear meaning in his orders to CSA Gen. Bragg on April 3, 1861:

"There would be to us an advantage in so placing them [Lincoln] that an attack by them [Lincoln] would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison [Forts Sumter or Pickens] that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations.

"The case of Pensacola, [Ft. Pickens], then is reduced [to] the more palpable elements of a military problem and your measures may without disturbing views be directed to the capture of Fort Pickens and the defence of the harbor.
You will soon have I hope a force sufficient to occupy all the points necessary for that end.
As many additional troops as may be required can be promptly furnished."
[Jefferson Davis to Braxton Bragg, 3 Apr 1861]"

woodpusher quoting Scott, April 4: "He is charged by authority here, with the command of an expedition (under cover of certain ships of war) whose object is, to reinforce Fort Sumter."

Orders to both Fox and Mercer make clear Lincoln's intentions that the mission to Fort Sumter is "resupply only" and "no first use of force" so long as secessionists remain peaceful.

Civilian merchant steamer Star of the West approaching Fort Sumter, January 9, 1861:

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher: "Try finding any of that crap in the 9-volume Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Try real quotes."

Some of those particular quotes appear to be more strongly attributed than others.

Here is a listing of over 40 Lincoln quotes relating to religion that all look pretty solid to me: Religious Quotes by Abraham Lincoln from the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

Here is the first quote on the list, dated 1846:

"That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrepect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.
Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity on July 31, 1846 (CWAL I:382)"

And here is the last, Lincoln's last public address:

"The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression can not be restrained.
In the midst of this, however, He, from Whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten.
A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated.
Last Public Address on April 11, 1865 (CWAL VIII:399)"