POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY - LINCOLN MYTH DEBUNKED

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

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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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[GOPcapitalist]

I have the strong feeling that if George Washington were still around, the gentry of Charleston wouldn't have faired any better than the dirt farmers of Western Pennsylvania did 70 years earlier when they tried rebellion. I also feel that another Virginian, James Madison, the father of the constitution, would have applauded crushing the Charleston treason.

You are free to desire as much, but such is idle speculation of little value or meaning as it never happened and could not happen.

[GOPcapitalist]

How was this done? Did they bring a legal proceeding forward? What mechanism was employed?

In most cases, they employed the mechanism of popularly elected and properly seated state governments, namely the legislatures. The legislatures then used various statutory methods to enact secession. Often this ammounted to doing it themselves, sanctioning a convention to do it, or authorizing a popular referendum that, upon passage, would enact secession by statute.

[rustbucket]

If state ratification declarations are the legal mechanism for secession, then the first seven states, (with no withdrawal language in their ratification declarations), withdrew illegally.

I'm not sure I understand your argument as it applies to Texas. Texas voters elected representatives to a secession convention endorsed by the state legislature. The elected delegates to the secession convention then voted to secede, subject to confirmation by the voters of the state themselves. The voters of the state then overwhelmingly voted to secede.

The Texas procedure used the same steps that the original states did to ratify the US Constitution and, in fact, went even further by submitting the secession question directly to the voters themselves.

We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freeman of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

But perhaps you are quibbling with the words used in the Texas secession documents. Perhaps the words didn't say "withdraw from the Constitution". If that is your complaint, then you are quibbling and splitting hairs. The Texas documents said that the 1845 act of the people of Texas by which Texas joined the Union was repealed and annulled and that Texas sovereignty was resumed.

Texas would seem to be following the guidance of James Madison, father of the US Constitution, who said:

It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal, superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and, consequently, that, as the. parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Oh, sorta the way the war went against the Germans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, huh?

No, not really. German submarine encounters, including some very near the coast of the United States, occured almost immediately. The air force was not the only means America used to fight the Germans, you know.

Yeah, I said that.

First large scale U.S. contact with German ground elements came in February, 1943. That's fourteen months after Pearl harbor.

Let's see...December 6, 1860 -- SC publishes secesh docs -- January 9, 1861, SC militia fires on U.S. flag on board the Star. Rebel gov't calls for troops in February, 1861, I think. Lincoln calls up the militia in April, first large battle at Manassas (forgetting fighting in what is now W. Virginia and elsewhere) in July. December -- July, call that 8 months.

I'd say the war was on from December 6 -- at least at the pace it was in WWII.

In fact, it was over 2 1/2 years before U.S. ground forces were in a real grapple with the Germans -- that came June 6, 1944. And also the 8th Air Force dropped in one WEEK in February, 1944 as many bombs over occupied Europe/Germany as it did in ALL of 1943.

The ACW was on from December, 1860, and as the timeline shows, at a pretty high tempo.

In fact, compare that tempo in 1861 to our war on Al Qaeda. We're dragging our feet compared to the secesh.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

In the meantime, I will simply note that you have yet to respond to ...Lincoln's own words in which he described the very same action he later undertook as both coercion and invasion.

It came after many disloyal and traitorous acts by the so-called seceded states.

Walt

[Ditto]

I am free to respond that US law did not govern the confederacy or its member states any more. You may then respond by asserting otherwise and arguing that it did, but in doing so you concede, perhaps inadvertantly, the real issue at hand with Sumter: the yankees were there to impede access to the harbor; coerce obedience, if you will.

Sweet concoction, but it's covered with flies. The fact is that the small Union detachment at Ft. Sumter never made a single hostile action in the months that they were there. In fact, the Fort (or should I say the 35 year-old Federal boondoggle authorized by Sec of War J.C. Calhoon to pump-up the local economy,) was still not complete and it had no capability for effective offensive or defensive action. It never fired a shot at, or in any way impeded or even threatened shipping in Charleston harbor.

Major Anderson's only mission was to keep the Stars and Stripes flying over the birth-place of treason. It was an order given him by President Buchanan, and re-issued by President Lincoln.

Now you can say that US law did not apply, but the vast majority of Americans in 1861 disagreed with that notion. They rejected anarchy, and when the Charleston slave-power anarchy turned into outright rebellion, they rightfully united and crushed it.

[GOPcapitalist]

It came after many disloyal and traitorous acts by the so-called seceded states.

In your mind. In reality, the south simply sought to separate itself from its previous political affiliation. The Lincoln acted to stop that separation and in doing so committed widescale acts of invasion and coercion per his own definitions of those two words.

[WhiskeyPapa]

In reality, the south simply sought to separate itself from its previous political affiliation.

No one is denying that.

They just aimed to do it at the point of a gun.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

...Lincoln acted to stop that separation and in doing so committed widescale acts of invasion and coercion per his own definitions of those two words.

He never said anything else.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

The ACW was on from December, 1860, and as the timeline shows, at a pretty high tempo.

Your comparison is false. The existence of a state of warfare exists after the occurrence of several generally recognized actions and the events that -immediately- precipitate them. Among the most common examples are a formal declaration of war by a country or an equivalent act of declaration, such as a blockade. Others include a major sanctioned military encounter, the sanctioned invasion of one country by the military of another, or an event that immediately precipitates any of these. In the case of the civil war, the first such event is Fort Sumter and those events immediately involved with it. Sumter itself was the first major military encounter of sanctioned troops. It also precipitated the first declarations of formal war in the blockade, and was used by The Lincoln as an excuse to launch his invasion of the south. No event prior to the immediate vicinity of the battle at Sumter can be said to have had any such consequence or implication. Therefore the war started with Fort Sumter and the first shot fired in it came from a yankee ship.

[Non-Sequitur]

No, not really. Unlike the Harriet Lane, the Star of the West was an isolated incident with no proximity to the start of the war. Citing it as the first shot is no more applicable that citing John Brown's raid, or Potowatamie Creek for that matter, as the first attack of the war. The Harriet Lane on the other hand occurred in the immediate proximity of Sumter and helped expedite the move on Sumter. It was therefore the first shot of the war.

Nonsense. The Star of the West was not an isolated incident, it was the first evidence that the south would go to war to take Sumter. It directly impacted Sumter in that it was a hostile act against an attempt to land supplies to a United States facility. The Harriet Lane, on the other hand, fired on an unidentified ship as she was tasked with doing. It took place after The Davis and his regime had issued orders to fire on Sumter so the two are not related.

The Lincoln was making war on the south only weeks out of Sumter by way of his blockade and soon issued his own call for an additional 75,000 to the yankee troop ranks. It is only common sense that the south would prepare for what was coming by having their own army assembled.

But the call for 100,000 troops came while The Davis and his regime were supposed to be negotiating peace and while the south supposedly believed that a peaceful evacuation of Sumter was not only possible but imminent. What were the troops for if The Davis really wanted a peaceful solution?

[GOPcapitalist]

The fact is that the small Union detachment at Ft. Sumter never made a single hostile action in the months that they were there.

But their accompanying naval attachment, the Harriet Lane, certainly did. Immediately prior to the battle, the Lincoln was also planning to employ that same union attachment in military coordination with the arrival of his fleet for the purpose of fighting their way into the harbor and asserting control over it.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Now you can say that US law did not apply, but the vast majority of Americans in 1861 disagreed with that notion.

That's really the answer to any aspect of the neo-reb rant.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Immediately prior to the battle, the Lincoln was also planning to employ that same union attachment in military coordination with the arrival of his fleet for the purpose of fighting their way into the harbor and asserting control over it.

You're misdosing you meds or something. There were 65 troops in Sumter. There was some piddling number in the ships of the April relief expedition. General Scott had told Lincoln that 20,000 troops would be required to take Charleston.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

Nonsense. The Star of the West was not an isolated incident

No military offensive of any consequence immediately preceded or followed it. No state of war immediately followed from it or preceded it. Therefore it cannot be pinpointed as the start of the war, and instead falls into the category of incedental skirmishes prior to the war.

it was the first evidence that the south would go to war to take Sumter.

Perhaps, but evidence is not the same as warfare or warfare's initiation. On the same note, that the feds tried to sneak in troops with the Star of the West is evidence of their willingness to use military force over Sumter, but it is not the same thing as The Lincoln's invasion of the south.

The Harriet Lane, on the other hand, fired on an unidentified ship as she was tasked with doing. It took place after The Davis and his regime had issued orders to fire on Sumter so the two are not related.

History says otherwise. Beauregard recieved word of the incident, prompting him to expedite the orders to open fire. Additionally those orders came in direct response to The Lincoln's action of sending a naval fleet to Sumter for military operation, of which the Harriet Lane was to be a likely participant. The events were therefore intwined together to a degree that is likely beyond the scope of your mental capacity.

[WhiskeyPapa]

It came after many disloyal and traitorous acts by the so-called seceded states.

In your mind.

And on the calandar, poster boy for Orwellian logic.

The rebels began raising an army even before President Lincoln took office.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

They just aimed to do it at the point of a gun.

And that gun was held opposite of another in the hands of The Lincoln, who sought to deny any separation, peaceful or not, by any means necessary.

[GOPcapitalist]

He never said anything else.

Then you admit that The Lincoln invaded the south and coerced his obedience. Fair enough. I simply make a point of this issue due to the fact that you were asserting otherwise a few days ago.

[chance33_98]

Ping!

[WhiskeyPapa]

Nonsense. The Star of the West was not an isolated incident

No military offensive of any consequence immediately preceded or followed it.

Well, I see you finally read the timeline.

What you call of no consequence included seizing federal installations and property worth millions, including a U.S. mint.

It's hard to imagine how you can post this crap.

Walt