Anyone can call anyone a "tyrant", the word is meaningless by itself.
So the apt comparison in this case is Lincoln to Jefferson Davis -- did Lincoln the "tyrant" take any actions which Davis the... uh, "patriot" didn't also take?
Answer: other than winning the war, none I can think of.
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>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Lincoln was far from a tyrant. He, and the 37th congress, were exercising their constitutional powers to suppress the largest insurrection in the countries history."
>>Joey wrote: "Anyone can call anyone a "tyrant", the word is meaningless by itself."
True. To become a bonafide tyrant, you must usurp power from the people, like Lincoln did (feverishly.) Even devout Lincoln apologists, like the late Cornell History Professor, Clinton Rossiter, admit to that historical fact:
"Thus it was that the American government in 1861, brought face to face with the most exacting crisis this country has ever known, had no precedent in its history for emergency rule on a national scale, and no authority in the Constitution to exert extraordinary force in an extraordinary manner except in the inchoate and ill-defined powers of the President. How Abraham Lincoln resorted to those powers and met the rebellion is the most significant chapter in the story of constitutional dictatorship in the United States, and indeed a unique instance in the history of this age-old phenomenon of constitutional government… The four years of the Civil War remain even today the most critical in the life of the Republic. The principle and the institutions of constitutional dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms… The simple fact that one man was the government of the United States in the most critical period in all its 165 years, and that he acted on no precedent and under no restraint, makes this the paragon of all democratic, constitutional dictatorships. 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."
[Rossiter, Clinton, "Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies." Princeton University Press, 1948, pp.222-224, 226]
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>>Joey wrote: "So the apt comparison in this case is Lincoln to Jefferson Davis -- did Lincoln the "tyrant" take any actions which Davis the... uh, "patriot" didn't also take? Answer: other than winning the war, none I can think of."
Joey has a difficult time staying on topic, which is, "was Lincoln a tyrant?" This is also from a Lincoln apologist:
"Yet, in comparison with the Confederacy, the Union government did curtail civil liberties. As soon as the fighting started, President Lincoln, without delaying to consult Congress, suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, at first for a small area in the East, later for the entire nation. At a subsequent date he reported his fait accompli to Congress: "These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand, and a popular necessity; trusting then, as now that Congress would readily ratify them." Congress had little choice but to ratify, and the disloyal citizen no alternative but to acquiesce. At least 15,000 civilians were imprisoned in the North for alleged disloyalty or sedition. They were arrested upon a presidential warrant and were kept incarcerated without due process of law. It did the disaffected citizen no good to go to court for a writ of habeas corpus to end his arbitrary arrest. On orders from President Lincoln himself, the military guard imprisoning him refused to recognize a judicial writ even when it came from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney."
[Donald, David Herbert, "Why the North Won the Civil War." Collier Books, 1962, pp.86-87]
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!
Mr. Kalamata