Finally, an honest Abe

New York Post ^ | Nov. 25, 2012 | Harold Holzer

[T Ruth]

Director Steven Spielberg, whom I introduced last week [in 2012] at Gettysburg at ceremonies marking the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech, said he was deeply humbled to be delivering an address on that history-making spot.

***

… Daniel Day-Lewis gives the definitive portrayal of our time, perhaps ever, of Honest Abe.

For people like me, who have spent their lives studying Abraham Lincoln, the film is chilling — as if he’s really come to life.

Day-Lewis does it by avoiding the traps most Lincoln actors fall into, the stoic, “Hall of Presidents”-esque stereotype that probably most Americans imagine.

There are no moving pictures of Lincoln, no recordings of his voice. But after his death, everyone was Lincoln’s best friend, and there are descriptions of everything from his accent to his gait.

The most important thing is the voice. Far from having a stentorian, Gregory Peck-like bass, Lincoln’s was a high, piercing tenor. Those who attended his speeches even described it as shrill and unpleasant for the first 10 minutes, until he got warmed up (or his endless stories managed to cow them into submission).

***

Few great people are appreciated in their time. And it’s good to remember that, no matter how right the decisions seem now, they were hard-fought then.

“I wanted — impossibly — to bring Lincoln back from his sleep of one-and-a-half centuries,” Steven Spielberg said at Gettysburg, “even if only for two-and-one-half hours, and even if only in a cinematic dream.”

***

Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln. ...

[At the end of the article Holzer gives thumbnail reviews of all prior Lincoln films, ranking them from worst to best, which Holzer considers to be Spielberg’s.]

[FLT-bird]

Agreed. That’s why I emphasize what the people at the time were saying MUCH more than I care about the opinions of historians later.....or even what the people themselves said later. People will remember the past in the way that is most convenient to them. Historians are only humans who have their own biases and their own opinions (kinda like “scientists” and “experts” now and just look how biased they are, how prone to self interest and groupthink).

I would much rather see what the people said and did before and during an event and then form my own opinions rather than have somebody else “interpret” for me and tell me what I “should” think about this or that. I can do that for myself thankyouverymuch.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Nullification crises.
Look it up.
Then figure out a way to blame it on slavery instead of a greedy northern controlled congress."

The 1830s Nullification Crisis had nothing to do with alleged "northern controlled congress", since Northeastern states voted against the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" while Southern-Western states voted for it.

The 1830s Nullification Crisis had nothing to do with regionalism and everything to do with pro-American vs. anti-American.

1. It was about Democrats wanting to "Keep America dependent on British imports" vs. Make America Great (1st time) patriots and National Republicans

2. It was about Democrats who hated America and want it dissolved vs. patriots who wanted to Put Americans First.

3. It was about Western producers who wanted to protect American manufacturing vs. globalist Democrats who just wanted cheap foreign imports to pay for their exports of slave-grown cotton.

4. The 1828 Tariff of Abominations was supported by:
   • Pres. Andrew Jackson -- patriot slaveholder from Tennessee
   • Sen. Henry Clay -- Whig slaveholder from Kentucky
   • Sen. John C. Calhoun -- Democrat slaveholder from South Carolina, briefly before flipping sides
   • Pres. John Q. Adams -- from Massachusetts

5. The 1828 Tariff of Abominations was opposed by:
   • Rep. John Davis -- from Massachusetts, future senator and state governor
   • Rep. Edward Everett -- from Massachusetts, future state governor
   • Rep. Samuel Eddy -- Rhode Island
   • Sen. John C. Calhoun -- Democrat slaveholder from South Carolina, after flipping sides
   • Sen. Robert Y. Hayne -- Democrat slaveholder from South Carolina
   • Gov. Governor James Hamilton Jr. -- Democrat slaveholder from South Carolina

When push came to shove in 1830 and South Carolina threatened secession, Pres. Jackson (slaveholder from Tennessee) famously threatened:

"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: The 1830s Nullification Crisis had nothing to do with North vs. South and everything to do with pro-American patriots vs. anti-American Democrats.

[DiogenesLamp]

Once such thinking became current in the South, secession became a clear possibility in the region's political thought. An unpopular war, a disputed presidential election, tariffs, slavery, or some other cause could then provide the pretext, to use Jackson's term.

So you are reiterating that the South wanted out of the Union, and were willing to use any "pretext" to make that happen.

How is this different from how I have characterized their secession? I've said all along that "slavery" wasn't the primary issue driving them out. You and others insist it was.

"Slavery", was a pretext. They wanted out for economic and probably cultural reasons, but you and others insist they only wanted out to "preserve slavery."

So clarify your position for me.

[DiogenesLamp]

You dress your responses in so much drama, that it becomes difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[DiogenesLamp]

I would much rather see what the people said and did before and during an event and then form my own opinions rather than have somebody else “interpret” for me and tell me what I “should” think about this or that. I can do that for myself thankyouverymuch.

This.

[Ditto]

Most Northerners didn't think much about slavery. It wasn't part of their lives. The same was true of most Southerners.

Hummmm? A few posts ago, you accused Northerners of making all the money from slavery, now you say they never thought about it. Which is it?

[BroJoeK]

Democrat Sen. John C. Calhoun from South Carolina
Secession a "constitutional right":

Rockingham #462: "Andrew Jackson, who was President at the time, warned on May 1, 1833, that

'the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and Southern confederacy the real object.
The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.' "

Rockingham #478: "I recommend that you read "The South as a Conscious Minority, 1789-1861: A Study in Political Thought" by Jesse T. Carpenter.
He traces the development of the compact theory of the Constitution and of the South as beleaguered and put upon as providing the legal and moral justification for secession.
Once such thinking became current in the South, secession became a clear possibility in the region's political thought.
An unpopular war, a disputed presidential election, tariffs, slavery, or some other cause could then provide the pretext, to use Jackson's term."

FLT-bird #479: "I'll check that out.
The South clearly did feel beleaguered and put upon.
Its difficult to argue they weren't.
I think the Tariff of Abomination was the first really big traumatic shock to Southerners.....that their economy could be wrecked for entirely political/artificial reasons to benefit the corporate interests in the Northeast.
That was immediately followed by a 30 year long struggle for political power which the Southern states could see they were losing due to mass immigration in the North."

Naw... first, Calhoun's argument is 100% complete bullshite and, second, contrary to FLT-bird's claims, "the South" felt no such thing in 1830 or later.

Yes, in the 1830s, Southern-Democrat elites who ruled South Carolina asserted their authority to nullify national laws they disliked, and to declare secession as a "constitutional right".
But "the South" included states like Pres. Jackson's Tennessee and Whig Sen. Henry Clay's Kentucky, none of which tolerated Calhoun's bullshite nonsense:

Pres. Andrew Jackson from Tennessee
"I'll hang you for it":

• Sen. John C. Calhoun (South Carolina): "each state, being sovereign, possessed “the constitutional right peacefully to secede” if its nullification were overturned by amendment."

• Pres. Andrew Jackson (Tennessee): “Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms.”

Jackson, Clay and many other Southerners were exactly right, while Calhoun, FLT-bird, DiogenesLamp and all such are 100% full of Democrat bullshite.

[FLT-bird]

Hummmm? A few posts ago, you accused Northerners of making all the money from slavery, now you say they never thought about it. Which is it?

The North did make more profit servicing the goods produced at least in significant part, by slave labor than the South did. Obviously most Northerners were not engaged in Shipping, Banking, Insurance and Wholesaling for those goods. A significant number, but nowhere near most. So I stand by the statement that most Northerners didn't think much about slavery in their daily lives.

[Ditto]

The North did make more profit servicing the goods produced at least in significant part, by slave labor than the South did.

Really. Show us the numbers. What percentage of the Cotton crop did they get. How many “Northerners” made more profit than the plantation owners.

[FLT-bird]

Naw... first, Calhoun's argument is 100% complete bullshite and, second, contrary to FLT-bird's claims, "the South" felt no such thing in 1830 or later.

Nah. The repeated statements of Southerners especially in the 1850s and and the early 1860s shows that they very much did feel that way.

Yes, in the 1830s, Southern-Democrat elites who ruled South Carolina asserted their authority to nullify national laws they disliked, and to declare secession as a "constitutional right". But "the South" included states like Pres. Jackson's Tennessee and Whig Sen. Henry Clay's Kentucky, none of which tolerated Calhoun's bullshite nonsense:

South Carolina, being more impacted by the Tariff of Abomination, was more vehement against it. Other Southern states sympathized but weren't willing at that time to go to the same lengths to nullify the tariff. Obviously the 7 states of the Deep South had reached a different conclusion by 1861.

Sen. John C. Calhoun (South Carolina): "each state, being sovereign, possessed “the constitutional right peacefully to secede” if its nullification were overturned by amendment." Pres. Andrew Jackson (Tennessee): “Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms.” Jackson, Clay and many other Southerners were exactly right, while Calhoun, FLT-bird, DiogenesLamp and all such are 100% full of Democrat bullshite.

Whereas I'd say you are wrong and are full of Lincolnite Bullshite.

"We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the general assembly, and now met in convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us to decide thereon, Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will...."

"We, the delegates of the people of New York... do declare and make known that the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the department of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions in certain specified powers or as inserted merely for greater caution."

"We, the delegates of the people of Rhode Island and Plantations, duly elected... do declare and make known... that the powers of government may be resumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the department of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments, to whom they may have granted the same; that Congress shall guarantee to each State its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the United States."

[FLT-bird]

Really. Show us the numbers. What percentage of the Cotton crop did they get. How many “Northerners” made more profit than the plantation owners.

Read Complicity. They laid out the numbers. https://www.amazon.com/Complicity-Promoted-Prolonged-Profited-Slavery/dp/0345467833 Why do you think Representative Reagan said this on the eve of secession?

"You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions.

We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroads and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them."

Why do you think Robert Barnwell Rhett said this?:

"The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city."

[Ditto]

"You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions.

I’ll say this about Rhett… he was a big BSer and a professional liar. Vast millions? The South paid almost zero in federal taxes. The railroads, cities canals… they paid nothing. What balance of exchange did the North have on the South? Rhett was a liar.

Let me ask you this. What was the total Federal revenue in 1860? How many “Vast Millions” was it. And how much of it came from the South? And actually, who controlled the Federal government in 1860?

[FLT-bird]

I’ll say this about Rhett… he was a big BSer and a professional liar. Vast millions? The South paid almost zero in federal taxes. The railroads, cities canals… they paid nothing. What balance of exchange did the North have on the South? Rhett was a liar.

Let me ask you this. What was the total Federal revenue in 1860? How many “Vast Millions” was it. And how much of it came from the South? And actually, who controlled the Federal government in 1860?

Here's a thought experiment. If the South wasn't really paying vast millions and providing a lot of the funding that was paying for railroads, canals etc etc, why did Northern newspapers themselves say this?

The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. We now see whither our tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. We were divided and confused until our pockets were touched." New York Times March 30, 1861

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade. It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose. No, we must not let the South go." The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861

That either revenue from these duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed, the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up. We shall have no money to carry on the government, the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe....allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten percent which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York. The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports." New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article "What Shall be Done for a Revenue?"

On the very eve of war, March 18, 1861, the Boston Transcript wrote: "If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty is laid upon the imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby. The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York. In addition to this, the manufacturing interest of the country will suffer from the increased importations resulting from low duties….The…[government] would be false to all its obligations, if this state of things were not provided against."

[demanding a blockade of Southern ports, because, if not] "a series of customs houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers, will be subject to Southern tolls." The Philadelphia Press 18 March 1861

December 1860, before any secession, the Chicago Daily Times foretold the disaster that Southern free ports would bring to Northern commerce: "In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow." Chicago Daily Times Dec 1860

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually." - Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

Why are all these Northern newspapers (and there were plenty of others) making all these statements admitting that the South was effectively paying a vast tribute to the North and was bearing the overwhelming share of the tax burden - which was going mostly to Northern infrastructure projects - if it weren't true? In the law we call these "Statements Against Interest".

[Rockingham]

Yet one cannot properly reject the weight and details of what historians think. To enter historical debate on a serious basis requires that one also know and consider what professional historians think.

[Ditto]

why did Northern newspapers themselves say this?

Because Newspapers then, just like now, shade the truth to favor their own party. Newspapers were not where you looked for independent thought.

[Rockingham]

Andrew Jackson being unavailable, I will answer your question as best that I can.

At America's founding under the Declaration and continuing after the ratification of the Constitution, the states were jealous of their distinct identities and separate authority. How then could they form a United States of America?

The Constitution created a federal government of limited delegated powers, with the states retaining much of their sovereignty. This created not just a legal and political tension between state and federal power but between loyalty to one's state and region and to the federal government.

Jackson's point as I understand it was that the nullification crisis and the theories and doctrines fashioned by nullification advocates did not expire with the compromise that ended the crisis. Instead, they established the basis for a later crisis that would put the Union in jeopardy when those nullification doctrines and ideology would be used as arguments for secession.

In that context, Jackson identified slavery as the likely pretext for secession. In a larger sense though, after the nullification crisis, the South already had its bags packed and a divorce lawyer hired. Slavery, tariffs, an unpopular war, or other issue could trigger secession. Jackson's point was that in the nullification crisis, the South had already begun to repudiate the Union.

[DiogenesLamp]

Jackson's point as I understand it was that the nullification crisis and the theories and doctrines fashioned by nullification advocates did not expire with the compromise that ended the crisis. Instead, they established the basis for a later crisis that would put the Union in jeopardy when those nullification doctrines and ideology would be used as arguments for secession.

In that context, Jackson identified slavery as the likely pretext for secession. In a larger sense though, after the nullification crisis, the South already had its bags packed and a divorce lawyer hired. Slavery, tariffs, an unpopular war, or other issue could trigger secession. Jackson's point was that in the nullification crisis, the South had already begun to repudiate the Union.

And how is that different from my point?

[DiogenesLamp]

Because Newspapers then, just like now, shade the truth to favor their own party. Newspapers were not where you looked for independent thought.

Have you ever heard of "Declaration against interest"?

The legal system generally regards statements against interest as being true.

[DiogenesLamp]

Vast millions? The South paid almost zero in federal taxes.

Oh. I see you still don't grasp how economics works. Rather odd for a conservative blog to have someone who absolutely does not grasp trade and money.

The South produced/paid 3/4ths of all the taxes. You just can't understand it because all the "hocus pocus" occurs behind European borders.

[Ditto]

The South produced/paid 3/4ths of all the taxes. You just can't understand it because all the "hocus pocus" occurs behind European borders.

Not this crap again. You know it isn’t true. Why do you keep spouting it.