[icclearly]

I repudiate every fashionable modern tendency to demean their character or their devotion.

Amen, brother!

Just like today, our country was divided then, and it still is today.

There's always another side to the story and the victors get to write that story like the "always right" NYT. Anyone truly interested in facts should read the book The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.

Lincoln was a tyrant!

Too bad. The South lost that war and paid the price then and now.

[cowboyusa]

Be glad that Trump’s hero Andrew Jackso wasn’t President. Lincoln was a softy compared to him.

[BroJoeK]

icclearly: "Anyone truly interested in facts should read the book The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.
Lincoln was a tyrant!"

DiLorenzo makes several main arguments, all of them bogus, including:

1. DiLorenzo claims Lincoln was a racist and white supremacist.

   This is a ridiculous argument, since Lincoln's views on slavery were more abolitionist than all but a few Southerners and at least half of Northerners.
   Further, by the end of his term (and life), Lincoln came to support full citizenship for freed slaves -- Lincoln's speech (April 11, 1865) on that claimed by John Wilkes Booth to be the motivator for assassinating Lincoln.

   Booth: "That is the last speech he will ever make"

   So, claiming that Lincoln didn't meet today's Progressive "woke" standards of anti-white racism is just ridiculous.

2. DiLorenzo argues that Lincoln’s support for Henry Clay’s American System and the Morrill Tariff prioritized Northern industrial interests at the expense of the South.

   In fact, protective tariffs (yes, the same ones Pres. Trump imposes) were Federalist, Whig and Republican policy since the first US Tariff of 1789.
   That first tariff was intended to not only provide Federal Revenues, but also to protect US producers.

   And not just Northern producers -- tariffs also protected Southern products like cotton, tobacco & sugar.
   The 1793 Coastal Trade Act protected not only Northern shipping but also the many ships built in, and operating from, Southern ports like Baltimore, Charleston and later, New Orleans.

   US tariffs also protected Southern manufacturers, including:

   • Textile mills in North Carolina, South Carolina and New Orleans, LA.
   • Iron works at Tredegar (Richmond) VA, Cumberland (Clarkesville) TN, Birmingham AL, Charleston SC & New Orleans LA.
   • Sugar Refining in New Orleans.
   • Food processing, including flour mills, meat packing and seafood processing, in many ports, especially New Orleans.
   • Tobacco manufacturing and packaging in Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky for both domestic and export markets.

3. DiLorenzo argues that Lincoln started the Civil War unnecessarily, while ignoring peaceful alternatives.

   In fact, the only "peaceful alternatives" were surrenders to Confederate aggressions against the Union in, not only Forts Sumter (SC) and Pickens (FL), but also seizures of Federal forts, ships, arsenals and mints, plus violence and invasions in Union states like Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri & Kansas, along with US territories of Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.
   Add to those Western Virgina and Southern California as objects of Confederate desires, and weakness in the guise of "peace" becomes a retreat and destruction of the United States in the face of Confederate power and ambitions.

   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.

4. DiLorenzo claims Lincoln used the Civil War as justification for centralizing Federal authority far beyond what the Constitution intends.

   In fact, the US Constitution -- and Founding Fathers' precedent -- do provide for expanded Federal powers during times of war, invasion or rebellion.
   So did the Confederate constitution, powers which Jefferson Davis employed just as vigorously, if not more so, than did Lincoln.
   Why then do those pro-Confederates who howl about "Lincoln the tyrant" not also notice "Davis the tyrant"?

5. DiLorenzo claims Lincoln prioritized preserving the Union over negotiating with the South.

   That claim is true, though Lincoln did attempt twice to negotiate directly with Southerners over secession and war:

   • April 1861, Lincoln met with Virginia representative John B. Baldwin and offered, in effect, "a fort for a state".
     Lincoln would give up Fort Sumter if Virginia would promise to remain in the Union.
     Lincoln's offer was rejected.

   • January 1865, at Hampton Roads, VA, Lincoln & Seward met with Confederate representatives, including CSA VP Stephens, and offered them compensated emancipation.
     Lincoln's offer was rejected.

6. DiLorenzo argues against Lincoln's denial of habeas corpus by, in effect, executive order, rather than waiting for Congress to specifically authorize him to (which Congress eventually did).

   In fact, we are now revisiting this debate under Pres. Trump, in his efforts to deport thousands (millions?) of illegal alien criminals without all the usual "due process".
   In Lincoln's case, Congress did authorize Lincoln to deny habeas corpus, and today Congress may again have to act to get the Federal courts to stop yapping at Trump's heals over deportations.
   Do those make Trump or Lincoln "tyrants"???
   Naw.