Yeah. It was all sweetness and light; with malice toward none and charity for all.
ML/NJ
Posted on 02/13/2009 8:05:16 AM PST by Dick Bachert
I don't know what they teach in U.S. history classes today. But back in the middle of the last century, when I was in elementary school, there was absolutely no question about how we were to regard Abraham Lincoln. We were taught to feel a reverence bordering on awe for Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator, the eloquent martyr who saved the Republic.
We were required to memorize the Gettysburg Address. And if we were lucky enough to join a field trip to our nation's capitol, one of the most significant events was our visit to the Lincoln Memorial. (A few of us rapscallions spoiled the solemnity of the moment by sliding down the sides of the monument.)
That was what we were taught in the grade schools of Cleveland, Ohio. And I suspect it wasn't any different in any other school in the North. Some of you sons and daughters of the South will have to tell me what your teachers and history books said.
It wasn't until I became an adult and started reading history on my own that I began to doubt the version of events I was taught nearly six decades ago. For example, did you know that Lincoln suspended civil liberties in the North, including the writ of habeas corpus? That he filled the jails with more than 13,000 political prisoners, all incarcerated without due process? The Supreme Court protested Lincoln's disregard for our Constitutional protections, but the president replied he had a war to fight. Since he commanded the army, Lincoln won that argument.
And speaking of the war, guess who uttered these words:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable — a most sacred right — a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit."
Okay, I'll admit this is a trick question. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln. But he was not talking about the southern states that tried to secede from the Union. No, these remarks were made in 1847, when Lincoln was defending the right of Texans to demand their independence from Mexico. A dozen years later, when six southern states tried to declare their independence, Lincoln's response was to wage war on them.
As a child, I never questioned the assertion that the South was wrong to secede. And that Lincoln was right to use as much force as necessary to preserve the Union. Later, as I grew to understand the strength and uniqueness of our Constitutional Republic, I began to question both assumptions.
The U.S. Constitution, I came to believe, was a contract — a contract between the various states and the federal government they created. Note that the Constitution had to be approved by the states, not a majority of the citizens. There was no "majority rule" here, no popular vote taken.
But this raises the question, if it was necessary for the states to adopt the Constitution, why wouldn't it be legal for some of those states to rescind that vote, especially if they felt the contract had been broken? More and more, I found myself thinking that the South was legally and morally right in declaring its independence. And the North, by invading those states and waging war on them, was wrong.
And what a terrible war it was. By the time it was over, nearly 625,000 Americans were dead — more American servicemen than were killed in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. Fully one-fourth of the draft-age white population of the South was dead.
The devastation in the former states of the confederacy is hard to imagine. Sherman's march from Atlanta to Savannah is notorious for its savagery. But he was far from the only Northern officer who ordered his troops to lay waste to southern farms, fields, and plantations. Union troops routinely destroyed crops, sacked homes, and even stabled their horses in Southern churches.
As H.W. Crocker III puts it in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War (Regnery Publishing, 2008), "If abiding by the law of a free republic and fighting a defensive war solely against armed combatants be flaws, the South had them and the North did not. Lincoln ignored the law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court when it suited him. His armies waged war on the farms, livelihoods, and people of the South, not just against their armies."
Of all the big lies about the War Between the States, the biggest of all may be that it was necessary to end slavery. The truth is that many illustrious southerners, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, recognized that slavery had to come to an end. But it should not come by force of arms, they felt; not at the point of a gun, but rather through the free consent of the owners, with the proper preparation of the slaves. To get them ready for their own freedom, for example, Lee's wife insisted the family's slaves be taught to read and write, and the women how to sew.
Despite what most of us have been taught, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves. It wasn't a law, but an edict. It specifically exempted the Border States and any parts of the South that were already under the control of Federal forces. It applied only to areas that were still in rebellion. So the Proclamation, of and by itself, did not free a single slave.
What it did, however, was change the nature of the conflict. Now the war was no longer about restoring the Union, or preventing Southern independence. Now it was about the morality, and the legality, of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation did not make the war more popular in the north, but it did end the possibility of other countries, especially France and Britain, from coming to the aid of the South. They might have been willing to assist southern independence; but support a war in favor of slavery? Never.
As Crocker notes, "In Southern eyes, the Emancipation Proclamation was the ultimate in Yankee perfidy — an attempt to incite slave uprisings against Confederate women and children." Then he notes, "Happily, while the proclamation did encourage slaves to seek their freedom, there were no slave uprisings, no murders of women and children — which might say something good about Southerners too, both white and black."
Abraham Lincoln, more than any other president who came before him, changed the very nature of our government. There would never again be as many limitations on the powers of the federal government. And just as tragic, the concept of states' rights suffered a blow from which it has never recovered.
I'm told that more than 14,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. Most, of course, are incredibly adulatory. The few that attempt to balance the scales are virtually ignored. While it may not be true that might makes right, it is definitely true that the winners write the history books.
It begs the question how much more have emotional problems of elected "leaders" cost us in the past and how much MORE will they cost us in the present and future?
If you'd like to know the magnitude of our peril, look up "malignant narcissism."
Any of the current gang in Washington could serve as poster kids for that one.
Be afraid. BE VERY AFRAID!
Your input?
‘Of all the big lies about the War Between the States, the biggest of all may be that it was necessary to end slavery. The truth is that many illustrious southerners, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, recognized that slavery had to come to an end.’
The author loses his crediblity with this.
The CSA’s Constitution codified Slavery. Jefferson Davis was positively outraged at Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation.
And Lee’s army rounded up anyone black and sent them South during both ‘invasions’ of the North.
Basically, by trying this, the author is recreating the ‘Lost Cause’ myth, updated to the year 2009.
“THE REAL LINCOLN” by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.
It is all about a STRONG federal government.
WE ARE SO BONED!
Interesting, the outrage was due to the fact, the emancipation was for those slaves in the confederate states only... a little known fact is there were slaves in the union especially such states as Maryland and even further North. The South had long feared a slave uprising...this proclamation was viewed in this light and as hypocrisy in action. I still admire Lincoln though. He save the union.
Thank you for that dose of reality.
Personally, he lost me at this lie;
“Sherman’s march from Atlanta to Savannah is notorious for its savagery.”
In this era, every citizen of the United States has a right to be fearful of its government. Unfortunately some are too stupid and others pitiably ignorant to understand what is being visited upon them. May God have mercy on us.
‘Interesting, the outrage was due to the fact, the emancipation was for those slaves in the confederate states only... ‘
That is true, but it was secondary to the outrage of the Southerners at having ‘valuable property’ (slaves) being taken from them without financial recourse.
Southern firebrands came up with what you mention here as a political afterthought.
“The CSA’s Constitution codified Slavery. Jefferson Davis was positively outraged at Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation.”
You seem to forget that the SCOTUS ruled that slavery was legal in the Dred Scott decision. You may disagree with the ruling; but when the Constitution of the Confederacy was written, THAT was the law of the land.
As for President Jefferson Davis’s outrage, how would Lincoln have felt if Davis had issued a “shoot on sight” order against Lincoln.
Deo vindice
Maybe Barack Obama really IS like Abraham Lincoln.
He was apparently a nasty, cruel man. I know on the history channel they described how he would fist fight in his 20’s as a legislator.
No, I don’t forget the dred scott case at all.
Irrelevant as it relates to the CSA, they left the Union, and as such the rulings of the Supremes were render moot.
Your welcome. I”m not a CSA basher by any stretch of the imagination...I’ve just read everything I could get my hands on related to that facinating moment in our nation’s history.
The CSA’s demise was sown into its own Constitution, and not just with its codifying of Slavery, but its over the top states rights provisions that made it almost impossible to defend itself in the moments of crisis. Thats how Lee’s army was barefoot while Georgia’s governor had warehouses with 50,000 complete sets of uniforms, including footgear, for just one example.
But this raises the question, if it was necessary for the states to adopt the Constitution, why wouldn't it be legal for some of those states to rescind that vote, especially if they felt the contract had been broken?
I'm calling up my Visa card company today and telling them I'm done with the contract too. So sorry about the money I owe. Cheers!
I don’t know why he lost you at that “lie”. He was viscous in burning homes in front of women and children and their husbands weren’t even there. In Savannah, the Union soldiers looted the graves of the wealthy there. To this day they don’t know whose tombstone goes for which grave because the soldiers just piled the tombstones up and dig into the graves.
The ONLY reason Savannah wasn’t burned to the ground was because it was a “Christmas gift” to Abraham Lincoln.
I don’t know how you see that as a “lie”.
There is also the lie that if you take pride in the Confederate (a name my great great grandfather died under) then you want all blacks to be slaves again.
Dixie ping
Yeah. It was all sweetness and light; with malice toward none and charity for all.
ML/NJ
The questions and the answers regarding the legality and nation impact of secession were simple ones for President Lincoln: Can a state simply vote itself out of the union of states called the United States whenever it so desires? If so, isn’t that a direct threat to the national existence and territorial integrity of the nation? Lincoln believed that if secession was allowed to stand, it would ultimately destroy the United States as a nation. It would turn us into a Europe with each state being an individual country. Many people agreed with him.
And, why did the Southern states secede? Was it because Lincoln threatened to abolish slavery in the South? No. It was because Lincoln believed slavery was morally wrong, and therefore should be limited to where it already existed. In other words, because he believed slavery was a moral wrong, he wanted the new states that would be formed out of the territories, to be “free” states - thus limiting slavery to the Southern states.
The Southern slave owners wanted slavery to spread to at least some of the new states for their system’s economic growth. If Lincoln were elected, they reasoned, he might stop this from happening and thus push the balance of power in Congress in favor of the “free” states. They saw this as a direct threat to their economic, political, and social way of life. Therefore, they seceeded.
My point? Lincoln did what he believed had to be done to rescue the nation from a very real and direct threat to it’s national existence. You can agree or disagree with him, but you must admit it was a major crisis for the country. He acted on what he believed to be the best recourse for protecting the country. If you believed secession were illegal and a threat to our country, you probably would have done what Lincoln felt he had no choice but to do. It was South Carolina that ultimately forced the issue into a shooting war at Ft. Sumpter.
THIS former Ohioan, whose great-grandfather served with the 80th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Tennessee, Mississippi and even came through Georgia with Sherman, has come to believe that the wrong side won that sad and deadly internecine conflict (which, BTW, was NOT about slavery). The outcome only served to entrench a bloated and tyrannical federal government on ALL the citizens here — black and white — and damaged the Constitution in ways that are only now becoming manifest. My wife’s great-grandfather also served in the Union Army.
(Anyone interested in knowing just WHAT it was about can visit http://reformed-theology.org/realaudio/ and scroll down to the 4 part series beginning with “The Causes of the War for Southern Independence.”)
Having said that, I find it incredibly interesting that many of the former slaves who went north eventually crossed over into Canada. If the North was so anxious to see these folks “freed,” why did they shuttle them off to Canada? I doubt that slave bounty hunters were safely active in those northern border states.
More liberal hypocrisy?
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