HANG OUT YOUR BANNERS: UNION VICTORY! PEACE! Surrender of General Lee and His Whole Army (4/10/1865)

New York Times - Times Machine ^ | 4/10/1865

[icclearly]

DiLorenzo claims Lincoln was a racist and white supremacist.

Well, that's your opinion, and we all get to have an opinion. That's not DiLorenzo's opinion. Sorry, I come closer to believing a PhD as opposed to some keyboard warrior.

Lincoln's views on slavery were more abolitionist....

Oh sure. That's why he waited until 1863 to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. He jumped right on that little initiative that many believe was a main cause of the war.

That first tariff was intended to not only provide Federal Revenues but also to protect US producers.

Oh yeah. Them tariffs worked out really well! Interesting, you did not make reference to the later tariffs in 1828, the biggie, the Tariff of Abominations that hit the South like a sledgehammer. Let's hope the crazy Trump "Tariffs of Disaster" don't lead us to another war, either internally or externally.

No Federalist, Whig or Republican US president would ever abandon the United States to our enemies. Nor would Democrats like Jefferson, Madison or Andrew Jackson, among others.

There you go again. Just another of your opinions. All three of those were Southerners, and you or I don't know how they would have handled the war. The war was about "a divorce." The South wanted out of the arrangement because of real and perceived abuses by the North.

We were as divided then as we are today. By the time it was wartime, no amount of negotiations, because of the ever-increasing differences, would change things -- short of a divorce. Lincoln, the tyrant, won, and the South lost. That's the bottom line. And the remnants of the cultural differences still linger with us to this day.

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "The vast majority of Americans, then and now, thought the Civil War was 100% necessary and only so long & bloody because some Confederates preferred "extermination" to surrender."

DiogenesLamp: "In the same manner that Stalin had a 100% approval rating.
If you criticized the war, the Lincoln administration would put you in prison."

Just as in every major US war, from the Revolutionary War through World War II.
It's only since WWII that the idea of people shamelessly committing treason -- i.e., "Hanoi Jane" Fonda in North Korea -- has been taken as a normal right of "free speech" or whatever.

In 1864, hundreds of thousands of Union troops voted, 78% of them for Lincoln as opposed to the Democrats' "Peace Candidate", "Little Mac" George McClellan.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I have never read any DiLorenzo books, but I have seen plenty enough evidence and quotes from Lincoln to come to the conclusion that he was very much a racist and a white supremacist.
Yes he was.
It's not even debatable.
Of course, the vast majority of people in that era were racist white supremacists.
They just were."

That whole argument is ridiculous nonsense since, among other reasons, the very words "racist" and "white supremacists" were not used in those days.

Yes, similar ideas were there, but they were expressed differently, and generally were taken for granted and so not debated.

What was discussed at great length was abolition and issues related to it, such as fugitives or "sojourning" with slaves into free states.
Lincoln favored abolition and opposed slaveholders' lengthy "sojourns" with slaves into free states.
That's what mattered in the 1850s, all this other language was not used and was irrelevant to debates of the time.

By 1865, Lincoln had come to support not only abolition but also full citizenship for freed slaves.
That's what got Lincoln assassinated, according to John Wilkes Booth.

So, can we stop babbling nonsense about "Lincoln the racist"?

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "DiLorenzo claims Lincoln was a racist and white supremacist."

icclearly: "Well, that's your opinion, and we all get to have an opinion.
That's not DiLorenzo's opinion.
Sorry, I come closer to believing a PhD as opposed to some keyboard warrior."

So, I'm certain you know the definitions of these college degree words:

1. B.S. = Bull Sh*t
2. M.S. = More Sh*t
3. PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper

What I'm saying is: the very words themselves -- i.e., "racist" or "white supremacist" -- are ridiculous, since they were not used in pre-Civil War decades.
"White supremacy" was first widely used in the South after the Civil War, and Lincoln's assassination.
"Racist" was not commonly used until the 1930s.

I'm saying it's ridiculous to accuse Lincoln, or others, of being words they didn't even know.

What Lincoln was, in his own terms, and those of Americans who voted for him in 1860, was a moderate abolitionist.
In Southern terms, Lincoln was a radical abolitionist.

quoting BJK: "Lincoln's views on slavery were more abolitionist...."

icclearly: "Oh sure.
That's why he waited until 1863 to issue his Emancipation Proclamation.
He jumped right on that little initiative that many believe was a main cause of the war."

In the eyes of 1860 Southern secessionists, Lincoln was a radical abolitionist, and that's why they must immediately declare secession.
In fact, Lincoln was a moderate abolitionist, who wanted gradual steps toward abolition, not radical change.

quoting BJK: "That first tariff was intended to not only provide Federal Revenues but also to protect US producers."

icclearly: "Oh yeah.
Them tariffs worked out really well!
Interesting, you did not make reference to the later tariffs in 1828, the biggie, the Tariff of Abominations that hit the South like a sledgehammer."

Southerners like Virginian James Madison and South Carolina's John C. Calhoun were totally in favor of protective tariffs from 1789 until 1828, when Calhoun himself supported the "Tariff of Abominations".

However, from 1790 to 1812 those first tariffs were set in the range of 10% on average.
After the War of 1812 US tariffs rose to circa 20%.
At the time, such rates were considered adequate to fund Federal government, pay down US debts and protect US producers, both agricultural and manufacturing.

What dramatically changed by 1828, forcing US manufacturers to call for 35% and higher tariffs, was Eli Whitney's cotton gin which, by the 1820s had spread throughout US cotton producing regions.
The cotton gin helped drive cotton exports to double roughly every ten years from 1800 through 1860.

By the 1820s, Brits were buying all the cotton Southerners could produce, but where was the money coming from to pay for Southern cotton?
The money came from British exports of manufactured goods to Northern big cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia & Baltimore.
The Brits were dumping their exports into Northern manufacturing cities to earn money necessary to pay for Southern cotton.

Naturally, Northerners didn't like it, and the War of 1812 had taught hard lessons in the necessity for US manufacturing independence -- we must not become dependent on the Brits for our economic or military security.

That is the Root Cause of the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which finally, after 30 years, put into stark relief the economic issues separating Northern from Southern interests, and forced the previously pro-tariff SC Sen. John C. Calhoun to become highly anti-Tariff of Abominations.

All that said, the 1828 Tariff of Abominations only passed because of the support of -- not New Englanders, who opposed it -- but Southerners other than Calhoun -- men like Kentucky's Henry Clay and Tennessee's Andrew Jackson, who was elected President Jackson in 1828.

Bottom line: after 1828, many Southerners opposed high tariffs, not because they wanted to purchase British & French imports, but rather because they needed Northerners to purchase such imports and so support the European economies which purchased Southern cotton.

quoting BJK: "No Federalist, Whig or Republican US president would ever abandon the United States to our enemies.
Nor would Democrats like Jefferson, Madison or Andrew Jackson, among others."

icclearly: "There you go again.
Just another of your opinions.
All three of those were Southerners, and you or I don't know how they would have handled the war.
The war was about "a divorce." "

Sorry, but you don't know our history, and that may well explain why you are so confused about it.

In fact, we know exactly what Presidents Jefferson, Madison and Andrew Jackson would do, because we know what they did do when faced with threats of secession:

1. In 1807, Pres. Jefferson arrested his former VP Aaron Burr, and tried him for treason, for Burr's attempt to use military force to secede Louisiana.

2. In 1814, Pres. Madison moved US Army troops off the frontier with Canada to New York's border with Massachusetts, ready to invade should threats of New England declaring secession materialize.
   Madison also allowed some troops to return to their homes in New England, to reduce tensions there.

3. In 1830, Pres. Jackson responded to South Carolina's threats to secede by sending US Navy warships and marines into Charleston Harbor, with the message:
   "Please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach."

Bottom line: our Founders all faced rebellion, insurrection, invasions, secession and treason, and our Founders always opposed them.

icclearly: "Lincoln, the tyrant, won, and the South lost.
That's the bottom line.
And the remnants of the cultural differences still linger with us to this day."

Lincoln was no more a "tyrant" than any other wartime president, or indeed than was Jefferson Davis.
The South lost for three main reasons:

1. The South was vastly weaker than the North in population and industry.

2. The South's cause was not enough about justice to attract international support -- meaning, regardless of their economic interests, Europe's powers did not want to support Southern slavery.

3. The North, while decidedly less militaristic than Southern culture, did eventually find leaders and disciplined soldiers enough to defeat the South's finest.

As for cultural differences:

• Today's Southern big cities like Atlanta, New Orleans or Houston have much more in common with Northern & Western big cities than they do with suburbs, smaller towns and rural communities throughout the South.

• Today's Southern suburbs, smaller towns and rural communities have much more in common with their Northern and Western equivalents than they do with Southern big cities like Atlanta, New Orleans or Houston.

That's the real bottom line.

[x]

DiLorenzo’s Ph.D. is in economics. Some economists view everything through the lens of economics and don’t see other motivations to political activity. Economists also group in schools (like fish), and different schools have different blind spots.

One of DiLorenzo’s blind spots is not seeing that slavery was a more important issue (even a more important economic issue) than tariffs. He has other blind spots as well. It’s up to the rest of us to bring together what we do know to try to see the whole picture.

[x]

So, is the end of “the American Iliad” also the end of Homer_J’s odyssey?

Indy Neidell on YouTube has done week-by-week series on the two World Wars and the Korean War. Maybe something followers of this newspaper series might be interested in.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Yes, a bit more wrapping up to cover, but then on to other ventures. Something completely different, I daresay.

[DiogenesLamp]

In 1864, hundreds of thousands of Union troops voted, 78% of them for Lincoln as opposed to the Democrats' "Peace Candidate", "Little Mac" George McClellan.

You should put "voted" in quotation marks, to indicate it may not have been a real vote.

You do know the Lincoln Administration manipulated the news to help him in that election, don't you? He hid damaging news stories from the public so they wouldn't know what a bloody mess the war was.

I'm trying to recall the particulars, but one of his generals conspired to create "news" or hide news in order to help him in the election.

As for the soldier's vote, I wouldn't put much stock in that. How many of them got to hear anything except what their officers wanted them to hear?

Given the underhanded style of the Lincoln government, it should not surprise me at all if they fixed the vote for the soldiers.

[DiogenesLamp]

That whole argument is ridiculous nonsense since, among other reasons, the very words "racist" and "white supremacists" were not used in those days.

That is an irrelevant argument. Whether they were used in those days or not, in the modern understanding of those words, Lincoln and everyone else were "Racists" and "White Supremacists."

What was discussed at great length was abolition and issues related to it, such as fugitives or "sojourning" with slaves into free states.

What was discussed were various plans for keeping the whites and the blacks separate. Lincoln had numerous discussions on methods to get the blacks out of the country. He even implemented some of the plans to do it, which turned out to be a disaster for all involved. I think it was attempted on the Mosquito Coast of South America. The vast majority died.

According to Union General Benjamin Butler, the very day Lincoln was assassinated, he was discussing another plan to get blacks out of the country.

By 1865, Lincoln had come to support not only abolition but also full citizenship for freed slaves.

Because they were guaranteed to vote for him and his party. This was just a cynical political usage of them. They were useful to him, but in reality, he wanted them out of the country.

So, can we stop babbling nonsense about "Lincoln the racist"?

Sure. Just tell us this isn't the hill you wish to die on, because the evidence that Lincoln was a "Racist" is overwhelming. If you want us to bring quotes, we can bring quotes.

You know i'm right about this, you just hate to admit it.

I understand the desire to not admit any flaws in people you admire, but even Trump has his drawbacks.

Still best president ever, but only Jesus was perfect.

[DiogenesLamp]

One of DiLorenzo’s blind spots is not seeing that slavery was a more important issue (even a more important economic issue) than tariffs.

So what prompted the secession crises of 1828?

Was slavery the core reason why the Southern states wanted to leave in 1828? What was the core reason?

[icclearly]

So, I'm certain you know the definitions of these college degree words:
B.S. = Bull Sh*t
M.S. = More Sh*t
PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper

WOW! So now you're trying to tell us that academic accomplishments don't count? I do wonder why those fancy degrees correlate to more life income and accomplishments.

Now, that there is one more stretch.

So, what are your academic accomplishments that makes your opinion so much more valuable or accurate than PhD DiLorenzo?

Lincoln was no more a "tyrant" than any other wartime president, or indeed than was Jefferson Davis. The South lost for three main reasons:

Thanks for admitting that Lincoln was a tyrant. That's exactly what DiLorenzo had to say.

On a related note, exactly what did Davis do that made him a tyrant? Hell, Davis was President for only three years. There are/were monuments erected all throughout the South supporting Davis after the war celebrating him. I'm all ears to hear what he did that made him a tyrant to the people in the South.

Today's Southern suburbs, smaller towns and rural communities have much more in common with their Northern and Western equivalents than they do with Southern big cities like Atlanta, New Orleans or Houston.

Well, we agree on one thing. Inner cities of Atlanta, New Orleans, and Houston are shitholes, just like their northern brothers and sisters. A big contributor is the migration of those escaping them wonderful cities in the north and west to the south for a better life due in part to the culture and better way of life. Just look at the crime statistics of those inner cities if you doubt.

If you believe that the suburbs and the rural south have the same culture and values as their Northern neighbors, you're simply making it up. Look at the county-by-county electoral map of the last election for a clue.

There you go. Just continue to make it all up with your ill-informed opinions.

[icclearly]

DiLorenzo’s Ph.D. is in economics. Some economists view everything through the lens of economics...

Correct. His degree was in economics, but that does not mean he lacked the academic training for accurate research and documentation. My point is that having a PhD certainly reflects some intellect and accomplishment qualifications.

I'm not sure you read the book. I did, and I don't recall seeing a slant toward economics at all. His book was a) about Lincoln and b) to a lesser extent what led up to the war.

One of DiLorenzo’s blind spots is not seeing that slavery was a more important issue (even a more important economic issue) than tariffs.

That's a debatable topic and not a blind spot. The reasons for the war is the topic of many books. You may have the opinion that slavery was the primary motivator -- I disagree with your opinion as do many others.

Reports indicate that about 5% of the population of the south owned slaves. Or in other words 95% of the population DID NOT own slaves. There were many causes to the war to those 95%.

A big part of it was "states rights" vs federal rights. The states in the South were losing their rights, and they wanted a divorce. That's the bottom line. Was slavery an issue? Yes. But it was not the predominant issue for 95% of the population.

[BroJoeK]

BJK: "..."Hanoi Jane" Fonda in North Korea..." !!!

Sorry, obviously, I should have said in North Vietnam, in 1972.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Indy Neidell on YouTube has done week-by-week series on the two World Wars and the Korean War. "

I watched (and still watch) them every week, and they were really good, though not as much fun as Homer's daily posts here... ;-)

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You should put "voted" in quotation marks, to indicate it may not have been a real vote."

And your evidence for that is what, exactly?

DiogenesLamp: "You do know the Lincoln Administration manipulated the news to help him in that election, don't you?
He hid damaging news stories from the public so they wouldn't know what a bloody mess the war was."

During the Civil War, newspapers published the only thing that really mattered to most citizens -- casualty lists.
When a family member was killed, wounded or missing, no other news really mattered.

The war itself did influence voters, and until the Union's battlefield successes in the fall of 1864, Lincoln himself believed the war was going so badly he would not win reelection.

DiogenesLamp: "As for the soldier's vote, I wouldn't put much stock in that.
How many of them got to hear anything except what their officers wanted them to hear?
Given the underhanded style of the Lincoln government, it should not surprise me at all if they fixed the vote for the soldiers."

After the Civil War, the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) and the G.O.P. (Grand Old Party) were almost synonymous.
The GAR's slogan was "Vote as You Shot", and they helped elect many Republican presidents, well into the 20th century.
So, any suggestions that Union troops were not just as committed to the Republican Party as Confederate troops were to the Democrats, is just nonsense.

Even as Radical Republican newspapers like Horace Greeley's New York Herald flipped sides from Republican to Democratic after the Civil War, Union soldiers remained loyal to the Republicans the rest of their lives.

Grand Army of the Republic memorial, Washington, DC:

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "That whole argument is ridiculous nonsense since, among other reasons, the very words "racist" and "white supremacists" were not used in those days."

DiogenesLamp: "That is an irrelevant argument.
Whether they were used in those days or not, in the modern understanding of those words, Lincoln and everyone else were "Racists" and "White Supremacists." "

Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables":

Sure, but you yourself can easily see how ridiculous your argument is if you simply realize that according to Hillary's Progressive Woke Democrats' political agenda, every one of us is "racist", "white supremacist", "sexist", "misogynist", "homophobe", "Islamophobe", "trans-phobic", plus, in Hillary's words, "you name it".

Surely you understand how ridiculous it is to make such claims against us, based on standards that nobody here recognizes as legitimate?
The same applies to Lincoln and all of those of his era.

You simply cannot go back in time to impose our standards, much less Hillary's Progressive "woke" standards, on historical figures.
No human being could pass such tests.

DiogenesLamp: "What was discussed were various plans for keeping the whites and the blacks separate.
Lincoln had numerous discussions on methods to get the blacks out of the country.
He even implemented some of the plans to do it, which turned out to be a disaster for all involved.
I think it was attempted on the Mosquito Coast of South America.
The vast majority died."

Sure, because it was logically assumed that, since Africans were kidnapped from their homes they would want to return, if not directly to Africa, then to somewhere similar in climate.

Today, around 150,000 Liberians (Africa) trace their ancestry to the tens of thousands of "recolonized" freed American slaves.

Yes, it's true that large numbers died within a few years after reaching their new "homeland", but that was also true of early European settlers at Jamestown, Plymouth & other early colonies.
Also, not all of those freed-slaves were young and healthy.
At least some were old and nearing the ends of their natural lives anyway.

Finally, all of the freed-slaves "recolonized" to Africa and elsewhere were volunteers, and could have chosen not to go.

DiogenesLamp: "According to Union General Benjamin Butler, the very day Lincoln was assassinated, he was discussing another plan to get blacks out of the country."

First, I don't believe Butler on this.
Second, the American Colonization Society (ACS) did not disband until 1964.
So, numbers of African Americans recolonizing to Liberia continued well after the Civil War and into the late 19th century.

Even today, there are hundreds of thousands of African American expatriates in countries around the world, tens of thousands of those in various African countries such as Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Senegal.

Every year some thousands of African American expatriates pass away naturally in their new homes abroad.

My point is simply that none of this has anything to do with Lincoln or "racism" or "forced deportations".
All of it is voluntary and for reasons that are likely quite similar to those of some 9 million total US expatriates abroad.

quoting BJK: "By 1865, Lincoln had come to support not only abolition but also full citizenship for freed slaves."

DiogenesLamp: "Because they were guaranteed to vote for him and his party.
This was just a cynical political usage of them.
They were useful to him, but in reality, he wanted them out of the country."

The Confederate view of "Ape" Lincoln in 1863:

Do you realize how insane you sound??
First you condemn Lincoln for encouraging freed-slaves to settle overseas.
Then you condemn Lincoln for trying to make freed-slaves lives better here in the US.

That means your brain is literally fried in anti-Lincoln b*ll sh*t, and you just can't break free of it, any more than Democrats today can shed their TDS -- Trump Derangement Syndrome.
You have LDS -- no, not Latter Day Saints, Lincoln Derangement Syndrome.

DiogenesLamp: "You know i'm right about this, you just hate to admit it."

You know you can't stop babbling anti-Lincoln nonsense.
I think its a form of mental illness, similar to TDS, but I've never figured out how a normal person -- meaning somebody who wasn't born into it -- can get such a disease.

[BroJoeK]

icclearly: " So now you're trying to tell us that academic accomplishments don't count?
I do wonder why those fancy degrees correlate to more life income and accomplishments."

Are you trying to tell us that academics are always honest and truthful, never biased or politically motivated, never make up cr*p just to suit their favorite theories?

And your evidence for this is what, exactly?

icclearly: "So, what are your academic accomplishments that makes your opinion so much more valuable or accurate than PhD DiLorenzo?"

I actually do have degrees, and one of them is in history -- so I'm a "history buff" -- but what's more important is that I've now studied at Jim Robinson's Free Republic University for well over 20 years.

That makes me as well informed as anybody in subjects that really matter.

How about you, FRiend?

icclearly: "Thanks for admitting that Lincoln was a tyrant.
That's exactly what DiLorenzo had to say."

Naw...
Any fool can throw around words like "tyrant" -- idiot Democrats call Donald Trump a "tyrant".
It's just meaningless nonsense.

If you're going around calling every consequential US President a "tyrant", it just means your own brain is full of B.S. and M.S.

icclearly: "On a related note, exactly what did Davis do that made him a tyrant?
Hell, Davis was President for only three years. "

Everything that, in your fried-brain, makes Lincoln a "tyrant", Davis did, and more.

icclearly: "There are/were monuments erected all throughout the South supporting Davis after the war celebrating him.
I'm all ears to hear what he did that made him a tyrant to the people in the South."

Even the 20% of Southerners who were white adult men did not all agree with your love for Jefferson Davis.
There were many throughout the South who remained loyal to the Union and resisted Davis's efforts to conscript or enslave them.

icclearly: "If you believe that the suburbs and the rural south have the same culture and values as their Northern neighbors, you're simply making it up.
Look at the county-by-county electoral map of the last election for a clue."

Do you mean this map, showing Trump won 84% of all US counties and the majority of counties in 90% of states -- every state except Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut & Hawaii?

[central_va]

Lincoln aka Illinois Butcher, better not go to the play....

[central_va]

The sad day the republic died. Ace LongColon and his cronies introduced America to the death of states rights and the income tax. Besides the killing of 600,000, it was quit a run.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "Lincoln aka Illinois Butcher, better not go to the play...."

According to John Wilkes Booth, it doesn't matter what Lincoln decides to do, or not do.
After hearing Lincoln's speech of April 11, 1865, supporting citizenship rights for freed slaves, Booth announced:

"That is the last speech he will ever make."

Lincoln can go or not, it doesn't matter.
According to Booth, Lincoln's support for freed slaves' citizenship rights signed Lincoln's own death sentence.
If not at Ford's Theater, then some other public event.