POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY - LINCOLN MYTH DEBUNKED

LewRockwell.com ^ | January 23, 2003 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo, PHD

[one2many]

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Politically Correct History by Thomas J. DiLorenzo The political left in America has apparently decided that American history must be rewritten so that it can be used in the political campaign for reparations for slavery. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Chicago inserted language in a Department of Interior appropriations bill for 2000 that instructed the National Park Service to propagandize about slavery as the sole cause of the war at all Civil War park sites. The Marxist historian Eric Foner has joined forces with Jackson and will assist the National Park Service in its efforts at rewriting history so that it better serves the political agenda of the far left. Congressman Jackson has candidly described this whole effort as "a down payment on reparations." (Foner ought to be quite familiar with the "art" of rewriting politically-correct history. He was the chairman of the committee at Columbia University that awarded the "prestigious" Bancroft Prize in history to Emory University’s Michael A. Bellesiles, author of the anti-Second Amendment book, "Arming America," that turned out to be fraudulent. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory and his publisher has ceased publishing the book.) In order to accommodate the political agenda of the far left, the National Park Service will be required in effect to teach visitors to the national parks that Abraham Lincoln was a liar. Neither Lincoln nor the US Congress at the time ever said that slavery was a cause – let alone the sole cause – of their invasion of the Southern states in 1861. Both Lincoln and the Congress made it perfectly clear to the whole world that they would do all they could to protect Southern slavery as long as the secession movement could be defeated. On March 2, 1861, the U.S. Senate passed a proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (which passed the House of Representatives on February 28) that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with slavery in the Southern states. (See U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, The Constitution of the United States of America: Unratified Amendments, Document No. 106-214, presented by Congressman Henry Hyde (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, January 31, 2000). The proposed amendment read as follows: ARTICLE THIRTEEN No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State. Two days later, in his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln promised to support the amendment even though he believed that the Constitution already prohibited the federal government from interfering with Southern slavery. As he stated: I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable (emphasis added). This of course was consistent with one of the opening statements of the First Inaugural, where Lincoln quoted himself as saying: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." That’s what Lincoln said his invasion of the Southern states was not about. In an August 22, 1862, letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley he explained to the world what the war was about: My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union. Of course, many Americans at the time, North and South, believed that a military invasion of the Southern states would destroy the union by destroying its voluntary nature. To Lincoln, "saving the Union" meant destroying the secession movement and with it the Jeffersonian political tradition of states’ rights as a check on the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. His war might have "saved" the union geographically, but it destroyed it philosophically as the country became a consolidated empire as opposed to a constitutional republic of sovereign states. On July 22, 1861, the US Congress issued a "Joint Resolution on the War" that echoed Lincoln’s reasons for the invasion of the Southern states: Resolved: . . . That this war is not being prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. By "the established institutions of those states" the Congress was referring to slavery. As with Lincoln, destroying the secession movement took precedence over doing anything about slavery. On March 2, 1861 – the same day the "first Thirteenth Amendment" passed the U.S. Senate – another constitutional amendment was proposed that would have outlawed secession (See H. Newcomb Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," Stetson Law Review, vol. 15, 1986, pp. 419–36). This is very telling, for it proves that Congress believed that secession was in fact constitutional under the Tenth Amendment. It would not have proposed an amendment outlawing secession if the Constitution already prohibited it. Nor would the Republican Party, which enjoyed a political monopoly after the war, have insisted that the Southern states rewrite their state constitutions to outlaw secession as a condition of being readmitted to the Union. If secession was really unconstitutional there would have been no need to do so. These facts will never be presented by the National Park Service or by the Lincoln cultists at the Claremont Institute, the Declaration Foundation, and elsewhere. This latter group consists of people who have spent their careers spreading lies about Lincoln and his war in order to support the political agenda of the Republican Party. They are not about to let the truth stand in their way and are hard at work producing "educational" materials that are filled with false but politically correct history. For a very different discussion of Lincoln and his legacy that is based on fact rather than fantasy, attend the LewRockwell.com "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference at the John Marshall Hotel in Richmond, Virginia on March 22. January 23, 2003 Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of the LRC #1 bestseller, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Forum/Random House, 2002) and professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland. Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com Thomas DiLorenzo Archives Really Learn About the Real Lincoln Now there is a study guide and video to accompany Professor DiLorenzo's great work, for homeschoolers and indeed anyone interested in real American history. http://www.fvp.info/reallincolnlr/

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[TexConfederate1861]

More Leftist Propoganda, WLAT?

Bruce Catton...now there is an impartial historian. And Hippos really DO fly!



For a WLAT-Free Dixie!

Deo Vindice!

[TexConfederate1861]

As in your head was run over by?

You must be another example of Yankee brainwashing.....





Sic Semper Tyrannis!..and Deo Vindice!

[gitmo]

[mac_truck]

No. Sadly, it is you who are in need of some education

Here son, try reading this... Abraham Lincoln / Thomas Keneally. Publisher New York : Viking, c2003. Description 183 p. ; 20 cm

Its available at your local library. Apparently there is some intelligent life down there in the piney woods..

Central Library (Conroe) Biography Area - 2nd Floor B Lincoln New Books Shelf

Malcolm Purvis Library (Magnolia) Non- Fiction Collection - 2nd Floor Newly Acquired

R.F. Meador Library (Willis) Adult Non-Fiction Collection - 2nd Floor Newly Acquired

South Branch Library (The Woodlands) Adult Area - 2nd Floor B Lincoln Checked out 02/11/03

West Branch Library (Montgomery) Adult Non-Fiction Collection - 2nd Floor Newly Acquired

[4CJ]

ROTFLMAO! It was an awesome movie (LOTR-TTT) based on an exceptional series of books. You hit the nail on the head about "the precious"!

[4CJ]

Having entered in a perpetual union, secession from the United States by the slave powers was not supported in the constitution.

Can you provide the exact portion/clause of theConstitution acknowledging this alleged fact?

If the framers contemplated states coming and going from the union, they would have provided structure for it.

See Amendment X.

The confederacy was formed to protect and expand slavery, which is tyranny in its purest form.

I certainly disagree. The same situation existed in 1776, when the founding fathers and the several states dissolved their former relationship with Great Britain, and again in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted, which did not prohibit slavery, it expressly protected it.

Territories purchased by the federal government or ceded to it by the several states, must be held in trust for the benefit of all states, not just those desiring a lily-white west (free from ALL blacks, not just slaves). By denying the slaveholders the right to emmigrate west, they were violating the Claims Clause (Article IV, §3, Clause 2 which states, "nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State".

According to Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 6th ed., 1856, prejudice is defined as:

To decide beforehand; to lean in favor of one side of a cause for some reason or other than its justice.

[4CJ]

You lied. You got caught.

Nonsense. Can you provide any documentation that the message was provided to the peace commisioners and/or Supreme Court Justice Campbell? Until then, Campbell et al had been told by a representative of the federal government and Lincoln, that THEY would be notified.

Try again.

[Non-Sequitur]

Can you provide any documentation that the message was provided to the peace commisioners and/or Supreme Court Justice Campbell? Until then, Campbell et al had been told by a representative of the federal government and Lincoln, that THEY would be notified.

Why would Lincoln have been under any obligation to communicate the message to either the so-called peace commission or Justice Campbell? Neither had any official standing while Governor Pickens did. Lincoln quite correctly dealt with him.

[stand watie]

!!!!

[rustbucket]

Territories purchased by the federal government or ceded to it by the several states, must be held in trust for the benefit of all states, not just those desiring a lily-white west

Agree. Consider the Louisiana Purchase Treaty:

The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights and advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.

There were slaves, considered property at that time, throughout the whole length of the Mississippi Valley in 1803. They didn't have liberty. The treaty would seem to give their owners the right to settle with their slave property anywhere in the Louisiana territory.

[mac_truck]

It seems the obvious escapes you. There is no mechanism in the US constitution for states to leave the United States, because the framers did not contemplate it happening in a perpetual union.

They did say in Article I Section 10 that "No State shall enter into a Treaty, Alliance or Confederation;"

and Article III Section 2 vests the Supreme court as the judicial power " to all cases in law and equity, arising under this constitution"

But what gives any confederate the right to invoke the United States constitution? Perhaps you could explain why instead of pursuing their so-called claims in the United States Supreme Court, the slave powers chose instead to fire on its flag.

[Colt .45]

"It appears, on the one hand, that the [United States] Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by the deputies elected for a special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals comprising the entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, ( PAY REAL CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT ... WALT! ) derived from the supreme authority in each state, - the authority of the people themselves." - Federalist #39 - James Madison

[Colt .45]

Hey Yankee! Read post 172! It tells you where the Southern States' right to secede came from. Ergo ... the people that have the ultimate authority to make the Constitution, had the ultimate authority to unmake it!

James Madison at the Virginia Ratification Convention of 1788 conceded the right of secession. Answering critics of the proposed Constitution, he said "If we be dissatisfied with the national government, if we choose to renounce it, this is an additional safeguard to our defence."

[groanup]

"Here son, try reading this..."




http://www.dixienet.org/dn-gazette/professors-sc.htm

[groanup]

"It seems the obvious escapes YOU:

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right-a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own so much of the territory as they inhabit." Abraham Lincoln, 1848.

[Non-Sequitur]

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.

They have the right to try. Your side just didn't try hard enough.

[Non-Sequitur]

Territories purchased by the federal government or ceded to it by the several states, must be held in trust for the benefit of all states, not just those desiring a lily-white west (free from ALL blacks, not just slaves). By denying the slaveholders the right to emmigrate west, they were violating the Claims Clause (Article IV, §3, Clause 2 which states, "nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State"

The Constitution says nothing about territories held in trust for the benefit of the states. On the contrary, the part of the Constitution that you failed to quote says that "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States". Congress decides what constitutes a needful rule and there is nothing in it that requires it to consult the states first.

By denying the slaveholders the right to emmigrate west, they were violating the Claims Clause

Nonsense. If Congress refuses to allow the expansion of slavery in the territories then how does that predjudice the claims of any state? Does it affect their ability to regulate slavery in their own borders? Does it hamper the citizens of that state to own slaves or deal in them? No. It in no way impacts the interest of the state. It may impact the ability of a resident of a state to emigrate to a territory with their chattel in tow, but the Constitution doesn't require that they be able to do that.

[thatdewd]

Even when I repeatedly post that Grier et al held that the issue of legal secession was being decided "by wager of battle", he still posts his diatribes.

Not to mention that his diatribes are becoming more and more eratic, and lately I have noticed a sharp increase in his use of fabricated and/or severly twisted information. Checking his sources is something more people should do. Quite often he uses snippets from things that actually say the exact opposite of what he proposes they do. For example, once he pasted a sentence out of a PRO-colonization speech of Lincoln's as "proof" that Lincoln had abandoned the idea. He does things like that all the time and doesn't get called on it. I believe that if Wlat were to enter Heaven today, he would immediately demand to know why The Almighty was sitting on Abe's throne. I wonder if he's ever read "Forced into Glory" by Bennett. That book makes DeLorenzo's look tame.

[thatdewd]

As I said before, it's not my interpretation, it's the U.S. attorney's.

As I said before, your understanding of the case is confused. I was being polite to word it that way. You have demonstrated a complete and total lack of understanding as to what the "Prize Cases" were about and what legal decisions resulted.

The Court agreed unanimously that secession was outside the law.

That, is a lie. The only thing they unanimously agreed to was that they would not decide on secession or the legality of the war. They dealt only with the legal issue at hand, which was NOT secession. The "Prize Cases" did not result in a decision on the legality of secession. You LIE every time you say it.

[thatdewd]

Having entered in a perpetual union, secession from the United States by the slave powers was not supported in the constitution. If the framers contemplated states coming and going from the union, they would have provided structure for it.

If the framers thought that it was "perpetual" and that states could not withdraw, then why did some States specifically declare they could do exactly that when they ratified the Constitution and created that union?

When New York agreed to ratify the Constitution it specifically stated in it's declaration "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness."

Virginia's declaration included these words: "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"

A State's right to reassume the powers it ceded to the Union were very clearly stated when that union was created. The New England states certainly didn't think it was "perpetual" or they wouldn't have come within a gnat's hair of seceding themselves a few decades after the Constitution was ratified. (more than once)