"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 were traitors by definition. Of course they weren't allowed to vote. Your interpretation is not supported by reputable historians. President Lincoln did not try to fix the election. In fact, he was at one point convinced he would lose.
Walt
You are wasting your time arguing with this person, who is an ideologically-driven graffito artist, a liar and an apparatchik. He is a Leftist troll and doesn't participate in these discussions honestly. He was thoroughly knocked down on the constitutionality of secession, to and beyond the point of elenchus, by 4ConservativeJustices and me last year: and yet he turned again, like a dog on his own vomit, and took recourse in other threads to spewing the same line, quoting the same quotes from his tickler file, and putting out the same McPherson-Foner Marxian line on the "facts" and significance of the Civil War.
In the construction of the "red-diaper babies" Foner and McPherson, the Civil War was a war of liberation: that's the key. The war was a vanguard-led, top-down liberation of the black man against the resistance of "reactionary elements". The whole point of McPherson and Foner is to hagiologize Lincoln as representing vanguard leadership, and to put forward the claim that vanguard leadership must always be followed unquestioningly, once identified, because such leadership is naturally superior morally and teleologically to whatever element of reaction is being engaged by whatever progressive campaign of the moment. You'll recognize these same themes frequently in Burt Lancaster films scripted by the blacklisted Communist Dalton Trumbo, who also recycled the story of the Spartacus revolt (the Servile War), told the Communist way, when he wrote the script for Spartacus.
Wlat is like the Lyndon LaRouche hardfaces who used to sell bumper-stickers and hand out their poison in airports. He's not here to talk to you, or to engage in honest discussions about the issues. He is here to disrupt, to walk his dog, and most of all to impress the gullible, whether lurkers or other posters.
I say this because I can see your rising frustration with him -- and to assure you that he will not acknowledge your points. He will give you no credit for a point you've made for which you can obtain documentary support -- you just caught Ben Butler conspiring with Edwin Stanton to depress the Democratic vote in New York with troops -- he will acknowledge neither the veracity nor the salience of your support, and he will not acknowledge, or desist from, intellectually dishonest debating tactics that he commonly indulges in -- fallacies of distraction, fallacies of logic and composition, appeals to popularity or force, and ad-hominem arguments both subtle and gross.
Satisfy yourself with citing and quoting him to show everyone that he's lying again, and let it go. Don't waste energy on him; he's not worth it. I've had him on twit filter for months now.
Good find -- nice post. Thanks.
Just like Clintoon didn't really mean that misconduct was an impeachable offense. LG, I don't know how I found that quoute, I just put in the words "mac truck", "Licolnite" "treason" and found it!
Nice find. Butler let the cat out of the bag on more than one occasion. His words about not exchanging any Confederate prisoners even if the South were to give up their slaves they captured in Union uniform and all the prisoners at Andersonville illuminate the Federal strategy and blunt and undermine their criticism of Andersonville.
Here are words about Butler from a proclamation by Jefferson Davis:
And whereas the hostilities waged against this Confederacy by the forces of the United States under the command of said Benjamin F. Butler have borne no resemblance to such warfare as is alone permissible by the rules of international law or the usages of civilization, but have been characterized by repeated atrocities and outrages, among the large number of which the following may be cited as examples:Peaceful and aged citizens, unresisting captives and non-combatants, have been confined at hard labor, with balls and chains attached to their limbs, and are still so held, in dungeons and fortresses. Others have been subjected to a like degrading punishment for selling medicines to the sick soldiers of the Confederacy.
The soldiers of the United States have been invited and encouraged by general orders to insult and outrage the wives, the mothers, and the sisters of our citizens.
Helpless women have been torn from their homes and subjected to solitary confinement, some in fortresses and prisons and one especially on an island of barren sand under a tropical sun, have been fed with loathsome rations that had been condemned as unfit for soldiers, and have been exposed to the vilest insults.
Prisoners of war who surrendered to the naval forces of the United States on agreement that they should be released on parole have been seized and kept in close confinement.
Repeated pretexts have been sought or invented for plundering the inhabitants of the captured city by fines, levied and exacted under threat of imprisoning recusants at hard labor with ball and chain.
The entire population of the city of New Orleans have been forced to elect between starvation, by the confiscation of all their property, and taking an oath against conscience to bear allegiance to the invaders of their country.
Egress from the city has been refused to those whose fortitude withstood the test, even to lone and aged women and to helpless children; and after being ejected from their homes and robbed of their property they have been left to starve in the streets or subsist on charity.
The slaves have been driven from the plantations in the neighborhood of New Orleans till their owners would consent to share the crops with the commanding general, his brother, Andrew J. Butler, and other officers; and when such consent had been extorted the slaves have been restored to the plantations, and there compelled to work under the bayonets of guards of United States soldiers.
Where this partnership was refused armed expeditions have been sent to the plantations to rob them of every thing that was susceptible of removal, and even slaves too aged or infirm for work have, in spite of their entreaties, been forced from the homes provided by the owners and driven to wander helpless on the highway.
By a recent general order (No. 91) the entire property in that part of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi River has been sequestrated for confiscation, and officers have been assigned to duty, with orders to gather up and collect the personal property and turn over to the proper officers upon their receipts such of said property as may be required for the use of the United States Army; to collect together all the other personal property and bring the same to New Orleans and cause it to be sold at public auction to the highest bidders"-- an order which, if executed, condemns to punishment by starvation at least a quarter of a million of human beings of all ages, sexes, and conditions; and of which the execution, although forbidden to military officers by the orders of President Lincoln, is in accordance with the confiscation law of our enemies, which he has directed to be enforced through the agency of civil officials. And, finally, the African slaves have not only been excited to insurrection by every license and encouragement, but numbers of them have actually been armed for a servile war--a war in its nature far exceeding in horrors the most merciless atrocities of the savages.
And whereas the officers under the command of the said Butler have been in many instances active and zealous agents in the commission of these crimes, and no instance is known of the refusal of any one of them to participate in the outrages above narrated