Abe Lincoln was a dictator??? (Need Help combating loony argument)

[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

[mojitojoe]

ON the internet.

[mojitojoe]

LOL!! have you ever gone back and checked his past posts? My God, it takes obsession to a whole new level.

[Bigun]

Nobody wants another civil war. Burning down Taxachusetts as punishment condign, for their having instigated so much misery over the last 400 years or so, has its appeal, but belongs more in the character of divine retribution on a bossy, sinful and prideful Yankee people, and might better be left to the left hand of heaven.

Rather, the work before us is to discern clearly what happened and how the institutions and original intent of the Union were twisted and transformed into an engine of wealth extraction for the benefit of a relatively few people, and to undo all that damage and return the Union to its original spirit of freedom, proportion, and subsidiarity.

I must somehow have missed this when you originally posted it on another thread but you can put me down as a 100% subscriber!

[mojitojoe]

[Non-Sequitur]

Your Hero, Lincoln

Your hero, Davis and Lee believed blacks belonged in slavery. Davis said they were suited for nothing else and Lee said that slavery was the best situation for blacks to be in. You don't find that to be just a weeee bit racist?

[mojitojoe]

You are obsessed with race, and I do mean obsessed. if I didn’t know better I would think you were black or married to one. Get over it, you are the biggest racist I know, seriously. It’s all you think about 24 hours a day. It’s eating you alive. It’s over, the slaves are free.

Lincoln was the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men…. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race.

“See our present condition — the country engaged in war! — our White men cutting one anothers throats ... and then consider what we know to be truth.... But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other ... It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. * * * You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.”

Lincoln’s Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes in Washington, D.C. on August 14, 1862 Collected Works, Vol. V, p. 371

[mojitojoe]

I see Dearie took off when you showed up. LOL

[mojitojoe]

Wrong... try again.

[Non-Sequitur]

Keep in mind, that unless they are kids, most adults don’t spill their identity and life story on the internet, especially on a forum where they have so many enemies.

Or where Lost Cause morons catalog everything they say. I mean seriously, if you've got nothing better to do than catalog every thing I let slip about myself then you really do need a life.

[Non-Sequitur]

You are obsessed with race, and I do mean obsessed. if I didn’t know better I would think you were black or married to one.

And wouldn't that just turn your stomach if it were true?

Get over it, you are the biggest racist I know, seriously.

Oh I can think of one or two bigger ones around here...

It’s over, the slaves are free.

Yeah, you can't go out and buy one or two and whup up on them like you used to. You must be sooooo disappointed.

[mojitojoe]

So what? Did I ever say he didn’t say it? Nope. Is he my hero like Lincoln is yours? Do I spend years all over the internet defending him? NO! YOU DO!

[Non-Sequitur]

So I was right, a female on caffine.

You haven't been right on anything else, nice to see your record remains unblemished. But why speculate? Mojitojoe claims he has a picture of me, sent to him by some unnamed Kansas FReeper. Get him to send a copy to you.

[mojitojoe]

Do you honest equate Florida with ‘this great Union of equals.
____________
I’m sorry your wife is afraid of snakes, but seriously, I never see snakes here. If Florida sucks so bad, PLEASE tell all these damn tourists to go to Kansas instead. Oh and by the way, most of my family is from Alabama, they just migrated further south.

[Non-Sequitur]

For instance: What characteristic made the the ships in Desron 4 different from the other squadron?

It's really gnawing at you, ins't it? The fact that we may have met at some point? I have no idea when you were there but who knows, maybe we did overlap. Maybe I was there on the Brown? Or maybe the Vreeland? Maybe we were in the same squadron, or maybe we weren't? Maybe I was on the Wainwright? Or what if I was assigned onboard the Semmes, wouldn't that be the height of irony? But hey, I'm a Yankee. The John Hancock would have been more appropriate, don't you think? You just never know.

And given how you creeps seem to have a fascination with every bit of my personal life I've let slip I guarantee you that you never will.

[Drennan Whyte]

no one knows what it would like like, it’s like anything in history, no one knows.

But still interesting to speculate on.

[Drennan Whyte]

I imagine that if the seceding states had been allowed to go their own way in peace that over time the issues causing the separation would have been resolved and that there would be close cooperation, if not complete reunion, by now between the two nations.

I've seen that suggested but I can't understand how anyone could believe it would ever happen. What chain of events could have caused the United States give up their independents and sovereignty and voluntarily subordinate them to Great Britain again. Regardless of whether the separation was peaceful or acrimonious I just can't imagine what could ever lead to a reunification. Especially since the South would be by far the minority partner, no pun intended. Their influence in the government would be nil at the beginning.

[Drennan Whyte]

If the south had won a long and protracted war I speculate that the reparations required of the U.S by the Confederacy would have ruined them financially and that the most, if not all, of the former union states would have eventually either reunited with the confederacy or joined the Canadian union. They could not have survived as they then existed.

I highly doubt that. Reparations didn't cripple France after the Franco-German war. And whether you want to admit it or not, a defeated Union would still be an enormous economic power when compared with the Confederacy. It had over 4 times the free population as the South, 10 times the manufacturing, 14 times the textile production, 38 times the coal production and 15 times the iron production. The U.S. had 3 times the farm acreage, 7 times the railroad mileage, 9 times the merchant ship tonnage. It produced more livestock, more grain, more in almost every area except cotton. The U.S. would have continued to grow and outstrip the South in every area so long as it was dependent on cotton production. The U.S. future was far brighter than the Confederacy's was.

[Drennan Whyte]

Would that have been with war or without war?

The Confederacy won their independence by winning the war.

[Drennan Whyte]

First of all, States Rights would have been cast in stone as with the right to secede thereby ensuring that politicians, such as disHonest Abe, FDR and Obama, would give considerable pause before treading on the rights of the people of the various states.

Would it? The Preamble to the Confederate Constitution differed from the U.S. Constitution in that it was established "in order to form a permanent federal government..." While president, Jefferson Davis took a number of actions to reduce the rights of states to run their own show. I can't imagine that suddenly disappearing, especially in the face of a beaten and hostile U.S. on their northern border.

Second, the South, decimated by The War, would not have been further decimated by that atrocity called Reconstruction.

True.

Third, you can't assume that the South, a mostly agrian nation, would have suffered through a depression.

I think you certainly can. A case can be made that the Great Depression hit the farmers earlier and harder than it hit the industrial areas, and lasted longer. If the Confederacy was still a primarily agrarian economy then they would have been hit as hard or harder than everyone else. With all the disruptions and dissatisfaction that the rest of the U.S. faced.

Fourth, and most importantly, Southerners are different than yankees and all you need to do is look a red state/blue state map from the last several elections to see it. We were conservative then, we're conservative now.

I don't think that's true. Especially the 'then' part.

Fifth, we would have had to remain constantly vigilant against subsequent invasion(s) from the north, meaning that we would have kept a strong standing army and navy and that every household would be armed to the teeth (kinda like they are now).

With the corresponding need for a large military-industrial complex, high government expenses to pay for it, and all the rest. How would the Confederacy fund it? Since they were supposed to be so opposed to tariffs and all.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Was there any evidence of voter suppression and fraud as per the Colonel's suggestion, e.g. a wide difference in return totals between the secession ratification vote and the 1860 presidential election vote?

The link below is to a Google rendering of a contemporary book with county by county returns for both the February vote where the mere calling of a secession convention was strongly rejected and the questionable vote in June ratifying the legislature's choice to leave the Union. The first election's returns start on page 33, the second on 48. The chapter starting on page 46 gives the contemporary Union opinion on the secession vote. A typical doubtful swing would be a county like Polk where secession was rejection 1,112 to 117 in the first vote, but approved 738-317 in the 2nd vote.

1861 Tennessee Elections