Posted on 02/12/2025 9:59:02 AM PST by Rummyfan
Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history.
Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are created equal. How can it be that lawyers know so little of the giant of their profession?
Former federal judge Herbert Stern is himself a prominent practicing attorney who has found much to learn from Lincoln’s legal career. As a teacher of practice skills to trial lawyers he frequently asks a rhetorical question: would you rather have an edge in the facts of a case, an edge in the law of a case, or Abraham Lincoln for your lawyer? In his view, the practitioner who can learn to emulate Lincoln as a lawyer holds the key to greatness in the profession.
But Lincoln is such an imposing figure that his stature obscures the man. As we view him historically, from the end of his life to the beginning of his career, he remains a figure whose greatness makes him difficult to know or understand. If we can follow him as a young man, as he finds his vocation and his calling, he may become a more familiar and accessible if no less admirable man.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
Killed 750,000 people as a direct result of his unnecessary war.
Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom ...
Such as the right to govern yourself as you see fit? No, he wasn't very big on that.
He believed people had to submit to the will of Washington DC, and pay taxes at a rate of 3 times that of the North's economic trade, which works out to 12 times as much as individual Northerners had to pay, on a per capita basis.
The government was literally financed by 72% from the South, and only 28% from the North.
Everybody has a “few” flaws don’t they?
Another mortal man we are ‘required’ to worship once a year and pretend what happened did not happen. Don’t DARE criticize Lincoln and especially MLK.
All I had ever heard for my entire life was that he was a "Hero", and one of the Greatest Presidents in History.
And I believed it for most of my life. It was only later when I became better informed about what had happened that I realized *HE* was responsible for a lot of unnecessary bloodshed. He was on the wrong side of morality in his efforts to force the South back under the control of DC.
They wanted out, and it was their right to get out if they so chose.
The rebel confederacy’s attempts to break the union over chattel slavery by illegal succession brought about the war. A war in which the rebels fired the first shot.
Lincoln was forced to act to save the Union, and in the course of doing so he broke the rebel states addiction to chattel slavery.
Taxation played almost no role, just look at each state’s Ordinance of Succession.
The taxation issue is brought up by Southern partisans embarrassed by how addicted the Southern states were to slavery.
To paraphrase US Grant, the rebels fought bravely, but for the worst of causes. And Abraham Lincoln was indeed one of our greatest Presidents.
Wasn't Rebellion. It was a right as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
... confederacy’s attempts to break the union...
The Union would have still existed even after several states decided they no longer wanted to be part of it.
The Union of the British Kingdom continued on after the 13 colonies broke away from it. It didn't "break" (as in making it non functional) after they left.
...over chattel slavery...
Two points.
Firstly, they had a right to separate for any d@mn reason they liked.
Secondly, their reason wasn't "chattle slavery". That was the propaganda the Union side kept spewing to justify what they were doing. The Northern controlled House and Senate voted by a 2/3rds margin to pass a constitutional amendment making slavery permanent in the United States.
If the issue causing separation was "slavery", than that Constitutional amendment, promising them all the slavery they could ever want, should have lured them back into the Union. It did not.
It also proved "the Union" didn't care about slavery either, because they offered permanent slavery on a silver platter.
...by illegal succession ....
Wasn't illegal. Was absolutely legal. The precedent set by the Declaration of Independence (signed by all the states at the time.) Demonstrates the nation recognized the right to Independence. Secession was performed by a vote of the people, who voted to leave the existing government and create their own which they believed would serve them better, just as the Declaration of Independence said they had the right to do.
...brought about the war.
Well no it didn't, and for the reasons I mentioned above, among others.
A war in which the rebels fired the first shot.
That is also incorrect. Lincoln initiated the conflict when he sent a fleet of warships to Charleston with orders to attack the Confederates there if they refused to allow them to reinforce the fort.
It was the arrival of those warships that triggered the attack which was a *RESPONSE* to the threat imposed by those warships.
But I bet you didn't know that because they never teach that part of history. Makes it look like Lincoln started the war, which he did.
Lincoln was forced to act to save the Union,...
How was the Union in any danger from Southern states separating from it? Was it because they would stop paying the 72% of the taxes for the government? The Southerners were paying 12 times the taxation of the Northern population, and yes, it represented the large majority of the Federal budget.
But other than slapping the Northern hand out of their pocket, how was the South separating from the North going to endanger the Union?
...and in the course of doing so he broke the rebel states addiction to chattel slavery.
He killed 750,000 and destroyed 5 billion of their capital. This is the same man that only 2 years earlier had been urging the passage of the Corwin Amendment which would create permanent slavery in the US.
Lincoln didn't care about the slaves. He cared that the South was refusing to *PAY* him the money he expected out of them. His war was just a mafia like shakedown scheme.
Taxation played almost no role, just look at each state’s Ordinance of Succession.
3 of them. Out of 11. And the reason they chose to claim "slavery", is because they had no legal recourse over taxation. The Constitution granted the congress complete powers over taxation, and there is nothing the South could do about it.
But the North was breaking the Constitution on the issue of slavery. The Constitution clearly required the Northern states to return escaped slaves, and they refused to do it, which breaks the requirements specified in the Constitution.
The legal argument is that the Union broke the law on the issue of slavery, so that is the legal argument put forth to declare a breach of contract on the part of the North.
But taxation was sucking out 65 million per year which would have stayed in their own pockets if they had separated from the Union. You may think people don't care about money, but people do in fact care about money.
The taxation issue is brought up by Southern partisans embarrassed by how addicted the Southern states were to slavery.
The North was making the most profit on slavery. The North took about 60% of the total profits from all Southern slavery production, but I bet you didn't know that.
Did you ever wonder *WHY* the North would offer them endless slavery, but would never agree to them stopping the payment of taxes to the North?
Why did the North so badly want to hang on to all those slave states?
You see all the corruption in Washington DC nowadays? Well it was just like that in 1860. Washington DC was raking in the Cash, and 72% of it was being produced by the Southern states.
You want them to get mad enough at you that they want to fight you? Cut off their money.
Which is what the South did.
To paraphrase US Grant, the rebels fought bravely, but for the worst of causes.
Same cause the original founders fought for. The Right to govern themselves and not let a corrupt government keep taking their money away from them.
And Abraham Lincoln was indeed one of our greatest Presidents.
This is what we had all been brainwashed to believe, but when you look at the facts of what happened, you begin to realize you have been misled, and he was not so great after all. In fact, he was the worst.
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