On this date in 1864 President Lincoln receives a Christmas gift.

[Bull Snipe]

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.

[DoodleDawg]

From memory, Lincoln was put into a disguise (not women’s attire, like Jeff) by Pinkerton, who knew of a threat against the President-elect, and who accompanied him.

There are different accounts I've read on the incident. Some say that there was no disguise but instead Lincoln remained in a sleeping car and slept during the transit through Baltimore. Others say he was awake but not in disguise. Others say he wore a cloak to disguise his features.

[eartick]

The war was a result of the Democrat slave owners attempt to split the nation in two. Remind you of anything that’s happening now???

BS. Some people need to go back to school. The effin yankees were taxing the South so much (neighborhood of 75% on some items) that the big thumb of the Federal Government was strangling them.

The taxation was a weapon used to end slavery but slavery was NOT the main cause of the war.

It truly was northern (federal) aggression. Similar to today where the liberlas try to push their warped ideology and trample our rights.

[eartick]

Long live Gen. Sherman.

I guess the stinkin' redskins would agree with you as well. Hmmmmmm?

Sherman can sit on the throne next to the devil. He never reached paradise for his inhuman treatment of the South and the Native Americans.

[eartick]

Hope Sherman is burning in hell

Long live the South. Long live Robert E Lee.

[eartick]

But the South joined hands with the devil and needed to be beaten.

So says you.

[yldstrk]

I had no exposure to the South until I joined the military over my mother’s horrified objections. I had been from Minnesota, then Missouri. I fell in love with the South. It’s a love affair. Way more civilized than that northern culture.

[DoodleDawg]

Who are your two witnesses?

How about Burnside and Pope? Having gotten their butts kicked by Lee on the battlefield I imagine they would have a reason to get even. And they can certainly testify that Lee waged war on the United States.

[OIFVeteran]

The main cause of the war was rebels firing on a United States fort. The main reason there was a rebellion was because of slavery.

Here’s a breakdown of the context of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas’s ordinances of secession. Keep in mind that when the phrase states rights is used it’s almost exclusively to the right to travel freely with slaves, expansion of slavery into the western territories, holding slaves, etc.

Georgia: 56% Slavery; 23% Economic issues; 15% Context; 4% States’ Rights; 2% Lincoln’s Election

Mississippi: 73% Slavery; 20% Context; 3% States’ Rights; 4% Contest

South Carolina: 37% States’ Rights 41% Context; 20% Slavery; 2% Lincoln’s election

Texas; 54% Slavery; 21% States’ Rights; 15% Context; 6% Military Protection; 4% Lincoln’s Election

You can look at the documents yourself and verify what I have posted.

[eartick]

You can look at the documents yourself and verify what I have posted.

I think you need to remember one thing, the victor rights the history books.

You can go on believing that is had all to do with freeing the black man by republicans but you would be gravely mistaken.

[OIFVeteran]

The ordinances of secession were written by the secessionists themselves at the time. No victor had anything to do with them.

If you don’t believe that the south rebelled because of slavery you are gravely mistaken. I would recommend educating yourself by reading the ordinances of secession and the written accounts made by the secessionists at the secession conventions.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "Mr. Olive discounts most major branches of science because they conflict with his Biblical belief in creation..."

Right, and I have no problems with that -- I live out in the country and most of my neighbors share such beliefs.
But there is a clear distinction to be recognized.
It's this: the faith of my neighbors tells them the Bible is right and modern evolution-related science is wrong.

But our FRiend, Olive-boy, goes the next step beyond and redefines his terms, claiming now that the Bible is science and modern science is just a religion.
None of my neighbors, so far as I've ever heard, would say such a thing.

My own beliefs are the more obvious ones: when God spoke to ancient Israelites he spoke in their language using words & ideas they could understand.
He didn't try to explain the secrets of science to them because that was irrelevant.
What they needed to understand, first & foremost, is the same thing we need: that God created the natural realm and rules over it.
So, if science now discovers another natural process, that doesn't a whit diminish God's role, it only shows us His creative genius in making even inanimate objects capable of doing amazing things.
FWIW.

[BroJoeK]

WIJG: "Please see my Post #148 (plus link in Post #152), for Mr. Lincoln's own proposal from December 1862... "

Right, in 1862 (iirc) Congress abolished slavery in Washington, DC, with compensation for slaveholders.
That was Lincoln's ideal at the time.
Later, it seems, the cost of Civil War in blood & treasure made thoughts of compensation for slaveholders impossible.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "Don’t rule out him being a Michigan State fan.
Of course, he could simply like Greek Olives.
Child."

As I was saying...

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "Joey doesn't understand science.
He only knows that we are not allowed to criticize either of his prophets: Abraham Lincoln, the racist; or Charlie Darwin, the father of modern racism. [Joey seems to have an inordinate affection for racists?]"

Again, an example of Olive-boy's "counterpunching" -- he counters the truth about himself with lies about me.

Kalamata: "For the rest of you, the decay rate of Uranium 235 is constant (the best we can tell.)"

Here our FRiend deliberately obscures the truth about himself in order to appear less than totally insane.
But the real truth is this: his parenthetic "(as best we can tell)" hides the fact that Kalamata believes radiometric decay was only constant during the very brief historical period when we can measure it.
Before that he believes: God set all the radiometric clocks around 10,000 years ago.

So, notice, in order to maintain his beliefs in "Biblical science" Kalamata must deny not only evolution, but also basic physics.

Kalamata: "Joey is (finally) correct.
Scientifically, the orthodox theories of redshifts cannot be proven.
We have no idea how the redshifts were formed, nor if they mean anything, nor if they even exist (that is, the observations may be the result of interference by interstellar matter, which means, "no expansion".)"

Right, again, Kalamata denies not just evolution, but any science, including astronomy, which suggests a Universe older than ~10,000 years.

Kalamata: "Due to modern discoveries of quantized red-shifts and the fine-tuning of the universe, only a scientific illiterate, like Joey, or a die-hard atheist (but I repeat myself) would discount the possibility of the universe being designed."

And here again Kalamata demonstrates that he just can't make his arguments without lying.
Of course the Universe was designed intelligently, by God, and Olive-boy well knows that's my belief, but keeps lying about it, and for what purpose?
Obviously in order to obscure the fact that what Kalamata advocates is not just that God created the Universe, but that He did it according to Kalamata's unique interpretations of Biblical scripture, ~10,000 years ago.

The truth is my beliefs, so far as I can tell, are identical with those taught by most mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic & other traditional churches, which go by the technical name of "theistic evolutionism" meaning, in a nutshell: whatever science now discovers was first created by God.

Kalamata: "BTW, Joey, there was another recent article by a team of evolutionary geneticists that pounded another nail into the coffin of the evolutionism "goto-boy" called Junk DNA.
These are a few excerpts from the article:"

And so yet again with his denier tactics, turning a discussion about technicalities within evolution into Kalamata's argument against evolution.
Here, from the Nature article, for example:

"At least 15% of pseudogenes are transcriptionally active across three phyla, many of which are proximal to conserved regulatory regions.
It is estimated that at least new human-specific protein-coding genes were formed by retrotransposition since the divergence from other primates."

Notice that in his own quote from Nature there is no argument against evolution, but still Danny uses science's words to deny science:

Kalamata: "Your religious prophets of Darwin and Lincoln have been taking a beating lately, Joey."

And yet another Kalamata denier tactic: when you've been pushed back and defeated on every front, like a football team sacked in its own endzone, then get up and declare victory, do your little victory dances and pretend to be the real winner.

[jdsteel]

Even if you consider it the War of Northern Aggression these things are still true:

Southern slave owners were all Democrats.
They attempted to carve out a separate nation.

[jeffersondem]

“How about Burnside and Pope (as witnesses at trial)?”

They’re dead Jim.

[DoodleDawg]

Joey seems to have an inordinate affection for racists?

Mister Olive worships the ground the Confederate leadership walks on and you're the one with an affinity for racists?

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "It appears I joined a little before you, Joey."

I didn't say when I joined, but I promise you that unless you were in the military when President Truman desegregated it in 1948, your memories of military life don't go back further than mine, Olive-boy.
I'll repeat: from the Civil War on the US military was always less racist than the hometowns of most enlistees.

Kalamata: "I don’t recall anyone criticizing Lincoln while I served.
I didn’t learn the truth about him until this century."

So, it turns out you don't claim that many serving marines were fellow Lincoln-loathers, just some after they retired?
And you also claim that having never learned to loathe Lincoln as a child, a man late-in-life can suddenly become insanely obsessed with him?
I don't believe it.

Kalamata: "It appears Joey is confusing our western heritage, created by Christians, with Lincoln, who tried to destroy it"

Nonsense, Lincoln like Washington is part of our heritage.
He tried to destroy nothing except slavery.

Kalamata: "It was the power of Christianity, and the belief in the doctrine of limited government, that helped us partially crawl out the crony-capitalist hell that Lincoln pushed us into (do you recall the warning of Eisenhower?) "

Eisenhower reduced US military spending from about 15% of GDP in 1952 to 10% in 1960.
In 1961 he warned about a "military-industrial complex", not "crony capitalism".
After Eisenhower military spending fell from 10% to ~5% in 1980, Reagan increased it to ~7% by 1984.
After Reagan the military fell to 3% under Clinton, rose to 5% for the War on Terror and then back to 3% under Obama.
President Trump has increased the military back to ~4%, just over half of Reagan's but nearly 1/3 more than Clinton & Obama.

At the same time that military spending was cut in half, then in half again, domestic social spending such as Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" exploded.

Bottom line: while President Eisenhower in 1961 did warn of a "military-industrial complex", he had already reduced it by 1/3 and future administrations would further reduce it by 1/2 and then 1/2 yet again, until defense was barely 3% of GDP.
And no president has talked about "crony capitalism" except in context as defined by law of illegal activities such as bribes & kickbacks.

Indeed, one reason Republicans got elected in 1860 was their promise to end 60 years of previous Democrat government corruption and misspending.
So your claims that "crony capitalism" was somehow invented by Lincoln and that Trump will somehow strike a blow against it are... well, bizarre.

Kalamata: "I served honorably, Joey (and I used every dollar of my G. I. Bill, and then some.)"

Me too.

Kalamata: "Have you ever noticed that Joey’s arguments are riddled with sanctimony?"

Have you ever noticed that Olive-boy's arguments are full of personal insults, mockery & belittlements?
In fact, that's about all he's really got.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "Joey cannot let a day pass without cluttering up a thread with sanctimonious foolishness."

Typical Democrat, accuses his opponent of the very thing he's most guilty of.
In Kalamata's case, his term "Biblical science" pretty much defines "sanctimony".

Kalamata: "Even devout Lincoln apologists, like the late Cornell History Professor, Clinton Rossiter, admit to that historical fact:" {quoting Rossiter, 1948}

"For if Lincoln was a great dictator, he was a greater democrat… This amazing disregard for the words of the Constitution, though considered by many as unavoidable, was considered by nobody as legal."

I'd call that complete 100% bunk, just lunatics babbling nonsense.
In fact Lincoln followed laws (i.e, the 1807 Insurrection Act), precedent (military opposition to the Whiskey Rebellion), and the Constitution (revoking Habeas Corpus) wherever he could.
And Congress at the time reviewed and approved any actions said to be controversial.

What the good Cornell Democrat professor is really doing here is simply trying to use Lincoln's example to help justify his own party's power-grabs before and during the Second World War.

Kalamata: "Joey has a difficult time staying on topic, which is, "was Lincoln a tyrant?"
This is also from a Lincoln apologist:"

Right, like other pro-Confederates Olive-boy wants to claim, "it doesn't matter what good-Davis did, it only matters what evil-Lincoln did."
The fact is that our Lost Causers are tickled & delighted to accept the beams in their own eyes if they can just search out a little splinter in evil-Lincoln's.
Sorry, but that level of loathing is just pathological.

Kalamata: quoting "[Donald, David Herbert, "Why the North Won the Civil War." Collier Books, 1962, pp.86-87]"

"At least 15,000 civilians were imprisoned in the North for alleged disloyalty or sedition."

What this 1962 author doesn't acknowledge in Olive-boy's quote is that Jefferson Davis arrested an equal number of Southerners, and also held them without Habeas Corpus.
He also does not acknowledge that Lincoln's use of the Constitution's Habeas Corpus clause began while Congress was out of session, and that Congress took up the issue when it came back a few weeks later.
After much debate, Congress authorized what Lincoln was doing.

Kalamata: "No where in the constitution, the constitutional convention debates, supreme court rulings -- no where is power authorized to the executive to suspend habeas corpus.
It is far to dangerous a power to give to a single individual, as about a million people later found out -- those who were killed or had their lives destroyed in Lincoln's War.
So, was Lincoln a tyrant?
The crystal clear answer is, YES!"

In fact the US Constitution (and the Confederate constitution) does authorize restricting Habeas Corpus under exactly the conditions Lincoln suffered.
Sure, it's a legal question of whether, in emergencies, the President can do that on his own, but in 1861 Congress took up the question and eventually authorized what Lincoln was doing.
And no Supreme Court ruling ever found Lincoln in the wrong.

The real truth here is that if we define Lincoln as "tyrannical", then Jefferson Davis was equally tyrannical and so this whole exercise is just, yet again, Democrats criticizing the splinter in Lincoln's eye while ignoring the beams in their own.

[OIFVeteran]

That’s a serious accusation that needs answered. Are you s Michigan fan?And Go Buckeyes.