If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?

Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.'

Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the federal government convict Davis of treason against the United States. Such a conviction must presuppose that the Confederate States could not have seceded from the Union; so convicting Davis would validate the war and make it morally legitimate."

Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?

At any rate, the Northern government prepared to try President Davis for treason while it had him in prison. Mr. Conner has observed that: "The War Department presented its evidence for a treason trial against Davis to a famed jurist, Francis Lieber, for his analysis. Lieber pronounced 'Davis will not be found guilty and we shall stand there completely beaten'." According to Mr. Conner, U.S. Attorney General James Speed appointed a renowned attorney, John J. Clifford, as his chief prosecutor. Clifford, after studying the government's evidence against Davis, withdrew from the case. He said he had 'grave doubts' about it. Not to be undone, Speed then appointed Richard Henry Dana, a prominent maritime lawyer, to the case. Mr. Dana also withdrew. He said basically, that as long as the North had won a military victory over the South, they should just be satisfied with that. In other words - "you won the war, boys, so don't push your luck beyond that."

Mr. Conner tells us that: "In 1866 President Johnson appointed a new U.S. attorney general, Henry Stanburg. But Stanburg wouldn't touch the case either. Thus had spoken the North's best and brightest jurists re the legitimacy of the War of Northern Aggression - even though the Jefferson Davis case offered blinding fame to the prosecutor who could prove that the South had seceded unconstitutionally." None of these bright lights from the North would touch this case with a ten-foot pole. It's not that they were dumb, in fact the reverse is true. These men knew a dead horse when they saw it and were not about to climb aboard and attempt to ride it across the treacherous stream of illegal secession. They knew better. In fact, a Northerner from New York, Charles O'Connor, became the legal counsel for Jeff Davis - without charge. That, plus the celebrity jurists from the North that refused to touch the case, told the federal government that they really had no case against Davis or secession and that Davis was merely being held as a political prisoner.

Author Richard Street, writing in The Civil War back in the 1950s said exactly the same thing. Referring to Jeff Davis, Street wrote: "He was imprisoned after the war, was never brought to trial. The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal." At one point the government intimated that it would be willing to offer Davis a pardon, should he ask for one. Davis refused that and he demanded that the government either give him a pardon or give him a trial, or admit that they had dealt unjustly with him. Mr. Street said: "He died 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing." If Davis was as guilty as they claimed, why no trial???

Had the federal government had any possible chance to convict Davis and therefore declare secession unconstitutional they would have done so in a New York minute. The fact that they diddled around and finally released him without benefit of the trial he wanted proves that the North had no real case against secession. Over 600,000 boys, both North and South, were killed or maimed so the North could fight a war of conquest over something that the South did that was neither illegal or wrong. Yet they claim the moral high ground because the 'freed' the slaves, a farce at best.

[Walt] Lincoln was prepared to lose the election of 1864 rather than go back on his word.

In his Life of Lincoln, McClure says:

"Lincoln's desire for re-nomination was the one thing uppermost in his mind during third year of his first term." In "Our Presidents," page 184, McClure says:

"A more anxious candidate I have never seen. I could hardly treat with respect Lincoln's anxiety about his renomination."

Holland bears witness to the strong and general dissatisfaction of the people in 1864, and their desire for a change. Fremont's name was the rallying cry with dissatisfied Republicans. Fremon boldly denounced Lincoln.

"Had Mr. Lincoln," said Fremont, "remained faithful to the principles he was electged to defend, no schism could have been created, and no contest against him could have been possible. The ordinary reights secured under the constitutions have been violated. The Administration has managed the war for personal ends, and with incapacity and selfish disregard for constitutional rights, with violation of personal liberty and liberty of the press."

Hapgood's Life of Lincoln states:

"Charles A. Dana testifies that the whole power of the War Department was used to secure Lincoln's re-election in 1864. There is no doubt but this is true."

In his book, published in 1892, General Butler proudly relates his part in the infamous work of using the army at the polls. The story is this: The election day was November 8, 1864. Lincoln had sent agents to new York City to spy ou and report how the election would go. the report boded ill for Lincoln's success: in fact, indicated that New York would give a large majority for General McClellan. Lincoln, Seward and Stanton were alarmed. The latter instantly telegraphed General Butler to reportto him the situation at New York.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Butler?
"Start at once for New York, take command of the Department of the East, relieving General Dix. I will send you all the troops you need."
"But" returned Butler, "it will not be good politics to relieve General Dix just on the eve of election."
"Dix is a brave man," said Stanton, "but he won't do anything; he is very timid about some matters."
This meant that General Dix was too honorable to use the United States Army to control and direct elections.
"Send me," suggested the shrewd Butler, "to New York with President Lincoln's order for me to relieve Dix in my pocket, but I will not use the order until such time as I think safe. I will report to Dix and be his obedient servant, and coddle him up until I see proper to spring on him my order, and take supreme command myself."
"Very well," assented Stanton; "I will send you Massachusetts troops."
"Oh, no!" objected the shrewder Butler, "it won't do for Massachusetts men to shoot down New Yorkers."

Stanton saw this also would be bad politics, so Grant was ordered to send Western troops -- 5,000 good troops and two batteries of Napoleon guns -- for the purpose of shooting down New Yorkers should New Yorkers persist in the evil intention of voting for McClellan.

When citizens of New York saw Butler and his escort proudly prancing their horses on the streets and saw the arrival of 5,000 Western troops and the Napoleon guns, there was great agitation and uneasiness over the city. newspapers charged that these warlike preparation were made to overawe citizens and prevent a fair election. Butler was virtuously indignan a such charges. General Sanford, commanding the New York State militia, called on butler and told him the State militia was strong enough to quell any disturbance that might occur and he intended to call out his militia division on election day. Butler arrogantly informed General Snaford that he (Butler) had no use for New York militia; he did not know which wya New York militia would shoot when it came to shooting. General Sanford replied that he would apply to the governor of the State for orders.

"I shall not recognize the authority of your Governor," haughtily returned Butler. "From what I hear of Governor Seymour I may find it necessary to arrest all I know who are proposing to disturb the peace on election day."

On Nov. 7th, the day before the election, after Butler had placed his troops and made all arrangement necessary to control the ballot, he wrote to Secretary of War Stanton a letter in which he said:

"I beg leave to report that the troops have all arrived, and dispositions made which will insure quiet. I enclose copy of my order No. 1, and trust it will meet your approbation. I have done all I could to prevent secessionists from voting, and think it will have some effect."

Secessionists meant democrats who chose to vote for McClellan.

[Walt] But in 1848, as a congressman, he wrote legislation that would have barred slavery from the District of Columbia.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr16.html

In 1849, Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln attempted to introduce a bill for gradual emancipation of all slaves in the District. Although the District's slave trade ended the following year, his emancipation attempt was aborted by Senator John C. Calhoun and others.

[Walt] Consider this text from the AOL ACW forum:

[Walt] "It is useful when thinking about Abraham Lincoln's attitudes toward slavery and Blacks to remember that Lincoln was a Southerner born in a slave state to parents born and raised in slave states. His family shared some of their culture's bias toward individual Blacks, but opposed the institution of slavery.

http://www.genealogytoday.com/us/lincoln/indpress.html

http://www.genealogytoday.com/us/lincoln/genesis.pdf

[Walt quoting] This background and the early move of the family to a free state shaped Lincoln's attitudes early in his adult life. Now consider several facts about Lincoln's political career:

[Walt quoting] 1. While Lincoln was building political strength in local Illinois politics, he opposed the war with Mexico as inexpedient for several reasons, including that it was waged to increase the power of slave states in the institutions of Federal government.

[Walt quoting] 2. During Lincoln's first term as U.S. congressman from Illinois in the late 1840's, he continued to criticize the Mexican war and worked out a bill (never introduced) calling for a referendum in the District of Columbia designed to free the slaves in that Federal enclave and compensate their owners.

His FIRST TERM as opposed to what?

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/uscapitol.htm

Lincoln's connections to this building are varied and rich, beginning on December 6, 1847, when he took his seat in the Thirtieth Congress. During his single term as the lone Whig Party representative from Illinois, he lived across the street at Mrs. Ann Sprigg's boardinghouse. The Library of Congress now stands in this location, just east of the building.

From the National Park Service:

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:XvDKQLe0YqUJ:www.nps.gov/liho/congress.htm+lincoln+1849&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The first session of the 30th Congress was to convene on December 6, 1847. In October the Lincolns rented their house for $90 a year to Cornelius Ludlum, and they left for Washington via Lexington, Ky., where they visited the Todds. After an arduous stagecoach and railroad trip, the Lincolns arrived in the Nation's Capital. Though Lincoln was active as a new member of Congress, his colleagues generally appraised him as a droll Westerner of average talents. Lincoln's opposition to the Mexican War which had broken out in May 1846 soon made him unpopular with his constituents. In Illinois the patriotic fervor and hunger for new lands disspelled any doubts that the people may have had about the American cause. Lincoln's "spot" resolutions asking President James Polk to admit that the "spot" where American blood was first shed was Mexican territory and his anti-administration speeches created surprised resentment at home and earned him the nickname "Spotty Lincoln." Illinois Democrats called Lincoln a disgrace.

[Walt quoting] 3. His reentry into national politics in 1854 was clearly for the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the territories under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He had his heart and soul involved with the idea of gradual emancipation to bring the fullest meaning to the words of Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/uscapitol.htm

With his background as one of eleven managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society elected in 1857, Lincoln brought with him ideas about colonization. He supported the separation of the races for several reasons. He believed that blacks were inferior to whites and therefore not entitled to live in the same society as whites. He also rationalized that the removal of the black laborers would create a market for white laborers. "Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor." His basic motive, however, for his extensive efforts was to once again have a purely white America.

[Walt quoting] 4. From 1854 to his nomination for the presidency in 1860, as James McPherson noted in his DRAWN WITH THE SWORD, "the dominant, unifying theme of Lincoln's career was opposition to the expansion of slavery as a vital first step toward placing it in the course of ultimate extinction." In those years he gave approximately 175 political speeches. McPherson notes that the "central message of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a "one-issue" man - the issue being slavery." Thus, Lincoln's nomination to the presidency was based on a principled opposition to slavery on moral grounds, and that position was clear to voters both in the South and the North.

Negro equality. Fudge! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this? (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, Rutgers University Press, 1953, September 1859 (Vol. III p. 399))

[Walt quoting] 5. In his early speeches and actions as president-elect and president, he was clear in his opinion that he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery in the slave states. However, he was persistent and consistent in his efforts to encourage and aid voluntary emancipation in the loyal Border States, territories and the District of Columbia. These efforts predated his publication of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

With his background as one of eleven managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society elected in 1857, Lincoln brought with him ideas about colonization.

He wanted to remove Blacks from America. He wanted to send them to any land mass other than North America.

[Walt quoting] In summary, I think one can safely say that Lincoln was clearly a gradual abolitionist from the beginning of his political career.

Nah. This began with his second term as a congressman.

[Walt] you won't consider the whole record.

You do not consider any part of the record which does not pretend that Lincoln was God. You twist, distort and dissemble to justify absurd positons. And then you choose to repeat the same litany ad nauseam.

Have you considered how Lincoln was viewed by his contemporaries while he was alive? Let us see how he was considered by Republicans in general and cabinet and administration members.

LINCOLN VIEWED BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES

In his History of the United States, Vol. IV., page 520, Rhodes makes the sweeping assertion that --

"Lincoln's contemporaries failed to perceive his greatness."

Other Republican writers make the same statement. Yet none attempted to explain why those who best knew Mr. Lincoln failed to esteem or respect him. Chase, while in his Cabinet, had every opportuity to know Lincoln well. Tarbell says:

"Mr. Chase was never able to realize Mr. Lincoln's greatness."

McClure says:

"Chase was the most irritating fly in the Lincoln ointment."

In their voluminous life of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay have this:

"Even to complete strangers Chase could not write without speaking slightingly of President Lincoln. He kept up this habit till the end of Lincoln's life. Chase's attitude toward the President varied between the limits of active brutality and benevolent contempt."

Of a bill to create offices in 1864, Chase wrote in his diary:

"If this bill becomes a law, Lincoln will most certainly put men in office from political considerations."

On this, page 448, Rhodes comments thus:

"A President who selected unfit generals for the reason that they represented phases of public opinion, would hardly hesitate to name postmasters and collectors who could be relied upon as a personal following."

Rhodes further says:

"In conversation, in private correspondence, in the confidence of his diary, Chase dealt censure unrestrained on Lincoln's conduct of the war."

Morse says:

"Many distinguished men of his own party distrusted Mr. Lincoln's character."

On an official trip to Washington, February 23, 1863, Richard H. Dana wrote Thomas Lathrop as follows:

"I see no hope but in the army; the lack of respect for the President in all parties is unconcealed. The most striking thing is the absence of personal loyalty to the President. It does not exist. He has no admirers. If a convention were held tomorrow he would not get the vote of a single State. He does not act or talk or feel like the ruler of an empire. He seems to be fonder of details than of principles, fonder of personal questions than of weightier matters of empire. He likes rather to talk and tell stories with all sorts of people who come to him for all sorts of purposes, than to give his mind to the many duties of his great post. This is the feeling of his Cabinet. He has a kind of shrewd common sense, slip-shod, low-leveled honesty that made him a good Western lawyer, but he is an unutterable calamity to us where he is. Only the army can save us."

According to Lamon:

"The Rev. Mr. Collier, sharing the prevailing sentiment in regard to the incapacity and inefficiency of Lincoln's government, chanced to pass through the White House grounds. ... "

Charles Francis Adams wrote:

"When Lincoln first entered upon his functions as President, he filled with dismay all those brought in contact with him."

"When Lincoln entered upon his duties as President he displayed moral, intellectual and executive incompetency."

On August 1, 1862, Wendell Phillips said to his audience:

"As long as you keep the present turtle (Lincoln) at the ead of affairs you make a pit with one hand and fill it with the other. I know Mr. Lincoln. I have been to Washington and taken his measure. He is a first-rate second-rate man; that is all of him. He is a mere convenience and is waiting, like any other broomstick, to be used."

In a speech made at Music Hall, New Haven, 1863, Phillips said:

"Lincoln was badgered into emancipation. After he issued it he said it was the greatest folly of his life. It was like the Pope's bull against the comet."

In Tremont Temple, Boston, Phillips said:

"With a man for President we should have put down the rebellion in ninety days."

At a Republican meeting in Boston, Phillips said:

"President Lincoln, with senile, lick-spittle haste, runs before his is bidden, to revoke the Hunter proclamation. The President and the Cabinet are treasonable. The President and the Secretary of War should be impeached."

In 1864, at Cooper Institute, Phillips said:

"I judge Mr. Lincoln by his acts, his violation of the law, his overthrow of liberty in the Northern States. I judge Mr. Lincoln by his words and deeds, and so judging, I am unwilling to trust Abraham Lincoln with the future of this country. Mr. Lincoln is a politician; politicians are like the bones of a horse's fore shoulder; not a straight one in it. I am a citizen watchful of constitutional liberty. Are you willing to sacrifice the constitutional rights of seventy years? A man in the field (the army) said: 'The re-election of Lincoln will be a national disaster.' Another said: 'The re-election of Lincoln will be naitonal destruction.' I want free speech. Let abraham Lincoln know that we are stronger than Abraham Lincoln; the he is the servant to obey us."

August 5, 1864, Henry Winter Davis and Senator Wade of Ohio issued this:

"A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people than was ever before perpetrated."

When Lincoln was asked if he had seen a speech of Phillips and the Winter Davis-Wade manifesto against him, he replied:

"I have seen enough to satisfy me that I am a failure, not only in the opinion of the people in the rebellion, but of many distinguished politicans of my own party." -- Lamon's Recollections, page 187

In McClellan's Life, a number of letters to his wife are published, in which McClellan speaks of Stanton's visits.

McClellans writes:

"The most disagreeable thing about Stanton is the extreme virulence of his abuse of President Lincoln, his whole administration, as well of all the Republican party. I am often shocked."

McClellan writes:

"Stanton never speaks of the President in any way other than as "that original gorilla." he often says: "Du Chaillie was a fool to wander all the way to Africa in search of what he could have found in Springfield, Illinois."

McClellan writes:

Nothing can be more bitter than Stanton's words and manner when speaking of the President and his administration. He gives them no credit or honesty of purpose or patriotism, and very seldom for ability. He often advised the propriety of my seizing the government and taking power in my own hands."

McClellan writes:

"Stanton often speaks of the painful imbecility of the President."

In McClure's Life of Lincoln, page 150, is this:

"Before Stanton was appointed Secretary of War he was an open and malignant opponent of the Lincoln administration. He often spoke to public men, military and civil, with withering sneers of Lincoln. I have hard him speak thus of Lincoln, and several times to him in the same way."

Hapgood's Lincoln, page 164 tells of Stanton saying:

"I met Lincoln at the bar and found him a low, cunning clown."

A.K. McClure says (Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 51) of Lincoln:

"If he could only have commanded the hearty co-operation of the leaders of his own party, his task would have been greatly lessened, but it is due to the truth of history to say that few, very few, of the Republicans of national fame had faith in Lincoln's ability for the trust assigned to him. I could name a dozen men, now [1892] idols of the nation, whose open distrust of Lincoln not only seriously embarrassed, but grievously pained and humiliated him."

Ida Tarbell in McClures Magazine, July 1899, calls Senator Sumner, Ben Wade, Henry Winter Davis, and Secretary Chase "Malicious foes of Lincoln," and makes the remarkable and comprehensive concession that "about all the most prominent leaders . . . were actively opposed to Lincoln," and mentions Greeley as their chief."

"Fremont, who eight years before had received every Republican vote for President, charged Lincoln (Holland's Abraham Lincoln, p. 259, p. 469, and p 471) with "incapacity and selfishness," with "disregard of personal rights," with "violation of personal liberty and liberty of the press," with "feebleness and want of principle"; and says, "The ordinary rights under the Constitution and laws of the country have been violated," and he further accuses Lincoln of "managing the war for personal ends."

Dr. Holland shows (Abraham Lincoln, p. 469, et seq.) that Fremont, Wendell Phillips, Fred Douglass, and Greeley were leaders in a very nearly successful effort to defeat Lincoln's second nomination, and quotes as follows, action of the convention for that purpose held in Cleveland, May 21, 1864, that "the public liberty was in danger"; that its object was to arouse the people, "and bring them to realize that, while we are saturating Southern soil with the best blood of the country in the name of liberty, we have really parted with it at home."

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech at Grand Rapids, September 8, 1900, said that in 1864, "on every hand Lincoln was denounced as a tyrant, a shedder of blood, a foe to liberty, a would-be dictator, a founder of an empire...."

Ida Tarbell, McClure's Magazine, March 1899, recorded the opinion of Secretary of State Seward:

"[Seward] believed, as many Republicans did, that Lincoln was unfit for the presidency, and that some one of his associates would be obliged to assume leadership...."

A.K. McClure writes:

"After Stanton's retirement from the Buchanan cabinet, when Lincoln was inaugurated, he maintained the closest confidential relations with Buchanan, and wrote him many letters expressing the utmost contempt for Lincoln ... These letters, ... given to the public in Curtis's Life of Buchanan, speak freely of the painful imbecility of Lincoln, the venality and corruption which ran riot in the government," and McClure goes on: "It is an open secret that Stanton advised the revolutionary overthorw of the Lincoln government, to be replaced by General McClellan as Military Dictator."

Schouler says of Stanton (History of the United States, Vol VI, p. 159)

"He denounced Lincoln in confidential speeches and letters as a coward and a fool."

The Lincoln monument was unveiled on April 14, 1876. Frederick Douglass said:

Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, the silent continent of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men (FD 4:312, italics added)

General Donald Piatt travelled with Lincoln when he was making his campaign speeches and knew him intimately.

General Donald Piatt said:

"When a leader dies all good men go to lying about him. From the moment that covers his remains to the last echo of the rural press, in speeces, in sermons, eulogies, reminiscences, we hear nothing but pious lies."

General Piatt continues:

"Abraham Lincoln has almost disappeared from human knowledge. I hear of him, I read of him in eulogies and biographies but I fail to recognize the man I knew in life."

Have you considered how Lincoln was viewed by his contemporaries while he was alive?

Yes.

"Lincoln had dignity in his mild-toned refusal of medidation by European nations, in silence as to the Trent affair. The [London] Spectator continued" "He is not malignant against foreign countries; on the contrary, thinks they have behaved rather better than he expected. No power in Europe can take offense at the wording of the [12/01/62] Message, nor can anyone say that the Republic bends to dictation, or craves in any undignified way for foreign forbearance. The words might have been more elegant, bur the astutest diplomatist could have accomplished no more, and might, perhaps, have shown a reticence less complete."

The gist of the message was epitomized: "Mr. Lincoln has from the first explained that he is the exponent of the national will. He has not merely recognized it. Amidst a cloud of words and phrases, which, often clever, are always too numerous, a careful observer may detect two clear and definite thoughts. 1. The President will assent to no peace upon any terms which imply a dissolution of the Union. 2. He holds that the best reconstruction will be that which is accompanied by measures for the final extinction of slavery." '

In the President's discussions of peace, said the Spectator, "He expresses ideas, which, however quaint, have nevertheless a kind of dreamy vastness not without its attraction. The thoughts of the man are too big for his mouth." He was saying that a nation can be divided but "the earth abideth forever," that a generation could be crushed but geography dictated that the Union could not be sundered. As to the rivers and mountains, "all are better than one or either, and all of right belong to this people and their successors forever." No possible severing of the land but would multiply and not mitigate the evils among the American States.

"It is an oddly worded argument," said the Spectator, "the earth being treated as If it were a living creature, an Estate of the Republic with an equal vote on its destiny." In the proposals for gradual emancipated compensation there was magnitude: "Mr. Lincoln has still the credit of having been first among American statesmen to rise to the situation, to strive that reconstruction shall not mean a new lease for human bondage." The President's paragraph was quoted having the lines; "Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation," as though this had the attractive "dreamy vastness" that brought from the English commentator the abrupt sentence "The thoughts of the man are too big for his mouth."

Greeley and others could not resist the impact of some judgments pronounced on Lincoln abroad. Greeley did not accept these judgments. He questioned them sharply. He saw, however, that they had significance and they were of historic quality. Under the heading "Mr. Lincoln in Europe" the New York Tribune of January 10, 1863, reprinted from the Edinburgh Mercury:

“In Mr. Lincoln’s message, we appreciate the calm thoughtfulness so different from the rowdyism we have been accustomed to receive from Washington. He is strong in the justice his cause and the power of his people. He speaks without acerbity even of the rebels who have brought so much calamity upon the country, but we believe that if the miscreants of the Confederacy -were brought to him today, Mr. Lincoln would bid them depart and try to be better and braver men in the future. When we recollect the raucous hate in this country toward the Indian rebels, "we feel humiliated that this 'rail splitter' from Illinois should show himself so superior to the mass of monarchical statesmen.

"Mr. Lincoln's brotherly kindness, truly father of his country, kindly merciful, lenient even to a fault, is made the sport and butt of all the idle literary buffoons of England. The day will come when the character and career of Abraham Lincoln will get justice in this country and his assailants will show their shame for the share they took in lampooning so brave and noble a man, who in a fearful crisis possessed his soul in patience, trusting in God. ‘Truly’, Mr. Lincoln speaks, 'the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.' There is little doubt what the verdict of future generations will be of Abraham Lincoln.

"Before two years of his administration has been completed, he has reversed the whole constitutional attitude of America on the subject of Slavery; he has saved the territories from the unhallowed grasp of the slave power; he has purged the accursed institution from the Congressional District; he has hung a slave trader in New York, the nest of slave pirates; he has held out the right hand of fellowship to the negro Republicans of Liberia and Hayti; he has joined Great Britain in endeavoring to sweep the slave trade from the coast of Africa! There can be no doubt of the verdict of posterity on such acts as these. Within the light of the 'fiery trial' of which Mr. Lincoln speaks, another light shines clear and refulgent—the torch of freedom—to which millions of poor slaves now look with eager hope."

--Abraham Lincoln, The War Years, Vol. II, pp.331-333, by Carl Sandburg

Walt

"Lincoln's desire for re-nomination was the one thing uppermost in his mind during third year of his first term."

Nah.

"But there were limits to what Lincoln would do to secure a second term.

He did not even consider canceling or postponing the election. Even had that been constitutionally possible, "the election was a necessity." "We can not have free government without elections," he explained; "and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us." He did not postpone the September draft call, even though Republican politicians from all across the North entreated him to do so. Because Indiana failed to permit its soldiers to vote in the field, he was entirely willing to furlough Sherman's regiments so that they could go home and vote in the October state elections -but he made a point of telling Sherman, "They need not remain for the Presidential election, but may return to you at once."

Though it was clear that the election was going to be a very close one, Lincoln did not try to increase the Republican electoral vote by rushing the admission of new states like Colorado and Nebraska, both of which would surely have voted for his reelection. On October 31, in accordance with an act of Congress, he did proclaim Nevada a state, but he showed little interest in the legislation admitting the new state. Despite the suspicion of both Democrats and Radicals, he made no effort to force the readmission of Louisiana, Tennessee, and other Southern states, partially reconstructed but still under military control, so that they could cast their electoral votes for him. He reminded a delegation from Tennessee that it was the Congress, not the Chief Executive, that had the power to decide whether a state's electoral votes were to be counted and announced firmly, “Except it be to give protection against violence, I decline to interfere in any way with the presidential election.”

"Lincoln", pp. 539-40 by David H. Donald

Donald states (about Lincoln in August of 1864), "...Had he failed to to insist on abolition as a condition for peace negotiations, he explained, he would be guilty of treachery to the hundreds of thousands of African-Americans who had 'come bodily over from the rebel side to ours.' Such betrayal could not 'escape the curses of Heaven, or of any good man.'

According to Donald, this was interpreted the next day in the New York Times thusly:

"Mr. Lincoln did say that he receive and consider propositions for peace...,if. they embraced the integrity of the Union and the abandonment of Slavery. But he did not say that he would not receive them unless they embraced both these conditions."

"There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson & Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends & enemies, come what will."

Walt

[Walt] 2. During Lincoln's first term as U.S. congressman from Illinois in the late 1840's, he . . . worked out a bill (never introduced) calling for a referendum in the District of Columbia designed to free the slaves in that Federal enclave and compensate their owners.

This unimpeachable anonymous source specifies Lincoln's first term as a U.S. congressman so we do not confuse it with all those other terms as U.S. congressman.

LINCOLN AND HIS DC EMANCIPATION PLAN

A New York congressman named Daniel Gott offered on Thursday December 21, 1848, a resolution requiring the appropriate House committee to report a bill banning the slave trade in the nation's capital.

The proslavery forces responded by offering a motion to lay Gott's resolution on the table. This, in plain English, was a motion to kill the resolution and to let Gott know who ran the House. But to the consternation of proslavery forces, the House rejected the motion, with eighty-five congressmen, including the entire Giddings antislavery contingent voting nay, and eighty-one congressmen including the whole Southern contingent, voting aye. How did Abraham Lincoln of Illinois vote? Did he side with the proslavery Southerners or the antislavery Northerners? He sided with the proslavery Southerners and voted aye.

After the House voted overwhelmingly to take up the main question with Lincoln and the Southerners voting nay, Gott's resolution was adopted by a vote of ninety-eight to eighty-eight Southerners and their Northern supporters, publicly opposing the call for a bill banning the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

This was not the end of the struggle, which continued for several days, inflaming the climate and triggering intense campaigning by proslavery and antislavery forces. After calling in IOU's and deploying heavy artillery like Senator John Calhoun of South Carolina and President James K. Polk, White Southerners renewed the battle on the same terrain on December 27, offering a series of motions that defined the issue and contesting forces. The first resolution was a pending motion to reconsider the House vote directing the committee on the district of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave trade in the district. The antislavery contingent countered with a motion to kill that motion by laying it on the table.

Thus the issue was joined and members arrayed themselves on one side or the other.

A vote to lay the motion on the table was, as everybody understood, a vote for the Gott amendment and against the slave trade.

A vote against the motion to table was a vote against the Gott amendment and for slavery and the slave trade.

All White Southerners, whatever their party, and all their allies and supporters, whatever their motives, voted against the motion to table, thereby asking for a reconsideraiton of the decision to ask for a bill banning the slave trade in the District. All antislavery members voted for the motion to table, which was defeated.

How did Abraham Lincoln of Illinois vote? He voted with the proslavery contingent, which prevailed with his help and the help of other Northerners.

A contemporary, Congressman George Washington Julian of Indiana, was surprised by Lincoln's vote. "To vote [with the proslavery side, as Lincoln did] would have been regarded as a direct support of the slave trade. This, few northerners were willing to do .... Unlike several of his northern brethren, he [Lincoln] showed no disposition to dodge the question, but placed himself squarely on the side of the South" (qtd. in Riddle 170).

In the midst of all this skirmishing, on Wednesday, January 10, 1849, Lincoln made a strange move, pushing himself to the front ranks of the contending forces by announcing that he intended to offer a bill for the gradual and compensated emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia.

In any case, Lincoln offered it as a substitute motion, saying that his proposed measure had the support of some fifteen White citizens of the district. ... Lincoln refused to name his White backers.

What happened to Lincoln's bill? He never introduced it.

Whatever the reasons, Lincoln's retreat was a victory for District of Columbia slaves, who were freed outright by Congress in 1862 and who would have remained in slavery until the 1890s or even the twentieth century under the conservative document Lincoln drafted.

The leading experts on his congressional career, Beveridge, Riddle and Quarles, say his votes on slavery were confusing at best and confused and opportunistic at worst. The major exception to this chorus of criticism is Donald, who said, as we have seen, that Lincoln voted for slavery and the slave trade because he loved free speech so much and thought it was wrong to abolish slavery without the consent of "the [White] inhabitants of Washington," not, mind you, the consent of the slaves.

The most damaging evidence against Donald's theory, however, is Lincoln himself, who voted to table a Giddings bill, which called for a referendum by the people of the District on the question of slavery. There was, to be fair, a slight difference between Giddings's understanding of government of the people and Lincoln's understanding of government of the people. Giddings called for a referendum of all the people of the District, including the White i>and Black residents; Lincoln's bill called for a referendum of the free White residents of the District. Since Lincoln opposed a referendum of all the people, his problem wasn't the absence of a referendum -- his problem, as always, and as his bill proves, was race. Furthermore, and at a deeper level, it can be argued that Lincoln or any other person who believed that the only way to end slavery was to ask slaveholders to voluntarily commit suicide by free ballots either didn't understand the situation or was a de facto supporter of slavery as it existed.

See Forced Into Glory, Lerone Bennett, Jr., pp. 236-9

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