Posted on 04/19/2010 8:18:35 AM PDT by erod
Hi FRiends,
I have two brothers who I love very much, they’re young and libertarian Ron Paul supporters, sigh. We get along and I’m hoping that one day they’ll come back to conservatism, but they have bought into a theory that I don’t think makes much sense:
Abe Lincoln was a dictator.
There are many websites dedicated to this nonsense you can Google "Abe Lincoln dictator" and get some weird stuff, if you want to check it out.
I need your help in busting this myth are there any books I can read on this subject to dispel this stuff? Do you know any of the arguments to combat this nonsense? Ie. Lincoln did not want to free the slaves.
Thanks for taking time out of your day to help me out, -Erod
Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days.
Eventually, Michael the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, “Where have you been?”
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, “Look, Michael, look what I’ve made.”
Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, “What is it?”
“It’s a planet,” replied God, “and I’ve put LIFE on it. I’m going to call it Earth and it’s going to be a great place of balance.”
“Balance?” inquired Michael, still confused.
God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth, “For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth while Southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot and the Antarctica in the South will be very cold. Over there I’ve placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people. God continued, pointing to different countries.
“This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.”
The Archangel, impressed by God’s work, then pointed to a large area and asked, “What’s that one?”
“Ah,” said God. That’s the SOUTH, the most glorious place on Earth. There are beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite coastline. The people from there are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they’re going to be found traveling the world. They’ll be extremely sociable, hardworking and high-achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace. A truly great people.”
Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, “What about balance, God? You said there will be BALANCE.”
God replied wisely...”Wait until you see the loudmouth obnoxious people I’m putting north of them.
Not at all. Lincoln always wanted to work within some sort of more-or-less American framework, although a lot more like Hamilton's original idea (proposed as a red herring, actually, to the Philadelphia convention as a debating tactic) of an overly-strong, centralized, almost authoritarian republic (or about what we have today in essence).
Obama is actively working to turn the United States into a totalitarian dictatorship. Worlds apart.
And is a topic of particular interest to you, which begs the question as to why.
All would have been well and good had the federal government simply let the Southern states go their way. We had no hatred for the Northern people, we simply wanted to be left alone. But empires are not built through pacifism and so federal forces acting under the dictatorial authority of Abraham Lincoln invaded our homeland with a vehemence that was unprecedented in the history of mankind. In the single most costly war in American history brother was often times pitted against brother in a conflict that took more American lives than have all the wars that she has ever fought in combined.
Although we lost the War for Southern Independence, the cause for which we fought still lives on in the hearts of our fellow Southern patriots, or Southrons, as they are more properly termed. It will always live on so long as men desire to be free — free to live their lives in the way they see fit without the constraints and infringements of government. Government without the consent of the people is tyranny and, as such, has no legitimacy (please refer to the quote at the top of this page entitled “Why We Fought the Civil War”). Patriots fought against tyranny in 1776 and they fought against it again in 1861. Man's desire to be free does not sleep nor will it die. It is an inalienable right granted by God and not by any governmental institution created by men.
Hey numbnuts, it’s a topic of interest everywhere now. I would bet my life on it that you’re for gay marriage and all that other homo sh*t.
Nope, but I've visted there. As well as Marais des Cygne.
Free to own other human beings.
“The difference is Lincoln did what he had to do and the result is he saved the nation.”
Saved it from what?
“Who bombarded Sumter?”
Well, the union only had to leave the land of the Confederate States. They refused.
Obama hates the United States. Lincoln hated slavery and The South. Lincoln refused to even set foot in the South during his Presidential campaign, just as Obama doesn’t like to spend time in the Red States.
Lincoln thought that God would have to punish the United States for the evil of slavery, Obama thinks that the United States must be punished for its greed (”God Damn America”, “White Man’s Greed over the black man’s need.”)
Both were very self-righteous and polarizing figures.
Most FReepers still don’t get it: The Republican Party was a very left-wing political party until around the the Wilsonian era . .
“Tell me more about the glorious southern culture that both blacks and whites shared in and loved.”
They did every bit as they did in the north that also had slavery. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation only freed a few slaves of Southern territory held. It DID NOT free any northern slaves. That took the 13th amendment.
All well and good - except if you were a slave. As much as people try to deny it, one of the "freedoms" the South fought for was the freedom to enslave other men. That, in a nutshell, is why the South lost.
Damn! How’d you know I was 145 years old? You’re good.
That means shockingly little of what is written about him is grounded in a measured reading of his actual life, not even the stuff by professional historians. In fact professional historians are often among the worst offenders.
If you want a measured biography of Lincoln try William Herndon's "Life of Lincoln," Ward Hill Lamon's "Recollections of Lincoln," or Gideon Welles' collected essays on the administration of Abraham Lincoln. All three were written by people who knew Lincoln personally, and they were each written with the intent of humanizing their old friend in the wake of the post-mortem apotheosis of his legacy that happened when the Radical Republicans of reconstruction seized upon his name as a political tool for their policies.
None of these biographies is perfect, but they are closer to the "real" Abraham Lincoln than most of what's written about him today. Herndon was Lincoln's law partner back in Illinois and did a lot of primary source research on Lincoln's pre-presidential life.
Lamon was an old Illinois companion of Lincoln's who accompanied him to Washington and was something of Lincoln's go-to guy for political dirty work during his presidency. As such, he was a bit of a scoundrel in his own right but he was among Lincoln's closest confidants in life. He's not very popular with the Lincoln hagiographers because he presents his subject in a less than saintly, though generally positive, light (Lamon's Lincoln is the type who liked bawdy jokes and wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty in political scheming - hardly the stuff of marble column heroes). But he is, IMO, more accurate than most.
Welles was Lincoln's secretary of the navy and a "moderate" on the cabinet who resisted the radical attempts to claim Lincoln as one of their own after his death. Unfortunately his essays have been out of print for many decades and may be hard to get a hold of.
You might also try Nicolay and Hay's multi-volume biography of Lincoln, though I'd attach a word of caution about it too. Nicolay and Hay were two of Lincoln's personal secretaries and bore eyewitness to much of his presidency. But they were both very young during their employ, and they tended to look on their boss through biased and almost worshipful lenses - much as an intern fresh out of college looks up to the "powerful" congressman who employs him. Whereas Lamon knew Lincoln as a friend and peer before he reached office, Hay and Nicolay knew him only as a superior and were devoutly loyal to upholding his reputation - even to the point that they got into a public spat with Lamon about it in the 1880's as to who was representing the "true" Lincoln.
But that said, steer clear of both the glowing Lincoln-worship bios and the revisionary Lincoln-bashing responses they provoked. The both present Lincoln as a hero or a villain, but lost in the process is Lincoln as a human being. That Lincoln is neither wholly good nor evil, a masterful and skilled politician-orator, and a man with both qualities and faults. His faults do extent to some aspects of the way he governed, and those tend to either be glossed over or harped upon by most writers. I'd therefore advise your friends not, as some here are suggesting, to excuse away those faults, but to concede your own cognizance of them and use that as a vehicle to reorient their perspective from the flawed "either worship Lincoln or hate Lincoln" dichotomy of choices.
One group of people enslaving another may technically be one culture, but it’s nothing to brag about. Misty-eyed sentimental wishes for a return to the glory days of yesteryear are insulting.
Slavery was an ancient institution borne of compassion. The choice of the victor was to slaughter all or enslave the women and children. If you wish to degrade all cultures that existed before 1865, you are free to do so, but it is foolish and shallow. Read your Bible, nowhere does it state that the institution of slavery was wrong, but rather that the slaveholder had duties and responsibilities to the enslaved. The Jews prohibited their members from selling slaves to certain people, on the suspension on how those others would treat their slaves. I am trying very hard to find this culture that existed in history that did not partake in slavery. So I guess you find the Judeo-Christian culture that merged with Greek-Roman culture to be nothing to brag about. Soldier up and recognize the truth of history. History was not lived as a parlor game.
That would be the same Chief Justice Rehnquist who said in a May 2000 speech before the Norfolk and Portsouth Bar Association, "The question of whether only Congress may suspend it has never been authoritatively answered to this day...?"
You don’t have to be 145 years old to be a defender of slavery. You jumped into the debate to defend the ridiculous notion of harmony amongst all races in the South.
That was advice given me years ago. Being brilliant was always beyond me and even not being stupid wasn’t always easy.
But of particular interest to you.
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