What Did Lincoln Really Think of Jefferson?

New York Times ^ | 07/05/2015 | By ALLEN C. GUELZO

[SeekAndFind]

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — “Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson.” That is not exactly what we expect to hear about the president who spoke of “malice toward none,” referring to the president who wrote that “all men are created equal.”

Presidents have never been immune from criticism by other presidents. But Jefferson and Lincoln? These two stare down at us from Mount Rushmore as heroic, stainless and serene, and any suggestion of disharmony seems somehow a criticism of America itself. Still, Lincoln seems not to have gotten that message.

“Mr. Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson as a man,” wrote William Henry Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner of 14 years — and “as a politician.” Especially after Lincoln read Theodore F. Dwight’s sensational, slash-all biography of Jefferson in 1839, Herndon believed “Mr. Lincoln never liked Jefferson’s moral character after that reading.”

True enough, Thomas Jefferson had not been easy to love, even in his own time. No one denied that Jefferson was a brilliant writer, a wide reader and a cultured talker. But his contemporaries also found him “a man of sublimated and paradoxical imagination” and “one of the most artful, intriguing, industrious and double-faced politicians in all America.”

Lincoln, who was born less than a month before Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, had his own reasons for loathing Jefferson “as a man.” Lincoln was well aware of Jefferson’s “repulsive” liaison with his slave, Sally Hemings, while “continually puling about liberty, equality and the degrading curse of slavery.” But he was just as disenchanted with Jefferson’s economic policies.

Jefferson believed that the only real wealth was land and that the only true occupation of virtuous and independent citizens in a republic was farming. “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people,” Jefferson wrote.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

What the Japanese did is orders of magnitude worse than what the Confederates did.

So what matters when US forces are attacked is the monetary damages and casualty numbers, not the principle of attacking the United States. Is that what you're saying?

[rockrr]

I didn’t that they - or you were very smart. I just said that they chose the “Might makes right” model - and lost.

[rockrr]

Dimbulb’s motto: whatever makes ya feeeeeeeel good!”

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

"Might makes right" is the only conclusion which can be drawn from the activities of people who use their superior might to stop the independence of others.

So any group of people, for any reason, can declare their independence and claim whatever land they wish, correct?

[rockrr]

Don’t forget, “at any time” LOL

[BlackElk]

Your post sets a new standard for incomprehensibility.

I would necessarily interpret it to celebrate Might Makes Right and, incidentally, to celebrate The End Justifies the Means.

Dishonest Abe said whatever was necessary to bamboozle an unwilling public into following his lead. The Southland is seceding, boys, Rally 'Round the Flag! And, ummm, (two years later) let's end slavery too at least in places where I can't enforce abolition. Leave my sister-in-law's slaves alone and those of Grant's wife, and the ones in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri because those are OUR slaves.

Ain't Dishonest Abe quite the moral hero? Sorry about those 600,000 dead soldiers and those maimed and wounded and civilian casualties and the carnage wreaked by Sherman's March to the Sea including the burning of Atlanta and the looting of the homes and assets of the Southland. But, hey, like Lenin would later say, If you want omelets, ya gotta break some eggs. Right? Besides, those weren't Abe's personal eggs.

[DiogenesLamp]

So any group of people, for any reason, can declare their independence and claim whatever land they wish, correct?

Not according to natural law, but certainly according to "Union law", if they have the raw power necessary to bludgeon the rights of others.

[DiogenesLamp]

Any other parts of our foundational documents you would like to dispense with while you’re at it?

Pardon me, but I think you are trying to put your shoe on my foot. It is *YOU* who is claiming the purpose of the Declaration was to abolish slavery. I merely pointed out that this is absolutely incorrect, and the purpose of that document was to assert the right of Independence from a larger Union.

You are the one dispensing with the principles upon which the Declaration was founded. You take five words from the document, and you apparently regard the meat of the document as window dressing.

[central_va]

Bubba we have been over this many times. Constitutionally the state is an entity defined in the Constitution. It is the next logical political unit. You are espousing anarchy which would be well down the totem pile in a societal collapse scenario.

Secession by a state is logical and can be voted on by the people as the levers of government are already in place. What you are doing it the typical liberal tactic of debasing everything to win your argument. The "tear it all down man" , doesn't work.

"The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language."

-- Jefferson Davis

[rockrr]

Ever hear of a country called "Liberia"? Guess who created it and why. :)

Robert E. Lee? Yea, I know he didn't "create" it but he was a member of ACS and he did pay the way for a bunch of slaves.

[DiogenesLamp]

How about you? Are black men men, or not?

Yes, of course, and that is about the extent of your deliberate baiting that I will put up with.

You are deliberately trying to skew the issue away from the salient aspect. You keep trying to lure it down a cul-de-sac so as to avoid confronting the core of it.

The Union did not recognize the rights of black men until it became convenient to their purpose to do so, so spare me the moral posturing. When that army invaded South Carolina, not a man jack of them was marching to end slavery, and i'm fed up with people deliberately trying to gloss over that essential point.

Abolishing Slavery wasn't on the "to do" list till approximately two years later. It was never the priority, it was just a cynical war tactic that later became a cynical political tactic.

[DiogenesLamp]

Unless you narrow it down to your salient point, i’m not going to bother with it. That’s too long to read without some reference to whatever point you are trying to make.

[DiogenesLamp]

So what matters when US forces are attacked is the monetary damages and casualty numbers, not the principle of attacking the United States. Is that what you're saying?

The US wasn't occupying a Japanese fortress in the traffic lanes of one of their most populous cities.

Do let me know when you come up with a valid point.

[EternalVigilance]

Sorry, but you missed the fact that the Declaration’s purpose was to lay out the moral case for Independence.

Actually, you didn’t miss it. You simply choose to ignore it, which means you throw out the foundations of the American claim to self-government in liberty.

[EternalVigilance]

Well, but I’ll take those who use “cynical political tactics” that end in the restoration of freedom to a whole class of human beings, made in the image and likeness of our Creator, over those who claim a “right” to commit the gross wrong of enslaving others any day of the week.

[DiogenesLamp]

I didn’t that they - or you were very smart. I just said that they chose the “Might makes right” model - and lost.

Excuse me, but you seem to be having difficulty of understanding the word "Might" in context. The Union population was double the Southern Population, Their industrial base was many multiple times bigger, their land mass was bigger still.

All the "Might" was on their side, and they used it to invade and conquor people who were defending their homeland.

The CSA didn't invade the Union, nor did it pose any serious threat to it. The provocation which you still whine about is damage to a bunch of rocks, and loss of pride at having been kicked off of other people's land.

Certainly not worth killing 600,000 people for, at least not to a sane man.

[EternalVigilance]

Sorry that you can’t be bothered with two minutes of one of the most important political speeches in American history.

[DiogenesLamp]

Robert E. Lee? Yea, I know he didn't "create" it but he was a member of ACS and he did pay the way for a bunch of slaves.

Robert E. Lee regarded slavery as more detrimental to whites than it was to blacks. I can't say he was wrong. The idea that some should work while others enjoy the fruits of their labor is a mental disease which is still spreading misery to this very day.

Unfortunately too much of our ruling class has become all too accustomed to this manner of living.

[EternalVigilance]

The CSA didn't invade the Union,

Hmmm...I seem to remember a number of incursions by the rebels into Union territory.

nor did it pose any serious threat to it.

Yeah, sure. The ring of forts and thousands of troops around the national capital were put there for no reason at all.

[EternalVigilance]

The idea that some should work while others enjoy the fruits of their labor is a mental disease

More progress!