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.
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?
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?
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?
Sherman skipped through the South with a hand basket passing out daisies? Is that how it happened? Please tell us
If he loses credibility with you on that point, then he should have totaled his credibility with this one.
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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.
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In other words, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to those areas that Lincoln could exercise his authority.
So what did Lincoln do to free the states in the states that were part of the union?
Well, first of all it wasn’t needed for most Northern states because those states were already free states.
For the remaining ‘border’ states, what he did was personally push through congress the Thirteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. That amendment abolished slavery in the United States and thus FEED THE SLAVES !!!
So the author can SHOVE his bogus theory where the sun does not shine.
Which constitutional amendment did Abraham Lincoln personally push through Congress and what did it do?
You can leave VISA anytime you want. My understanding is that the Southerners wanted to reach a financial settlement on Federal property in their States. (And it would seem to me that they probably should have been compensated for their share of Federal property in the Northern States, though I do not believe this was requested) "Honest" Abe made sure none of this ever happened.
ML/NJ
Ditto. And thank you.
You've got it completely backasswards, FRiend.
I suggest you read the emancipation proclamation. You'll find it applied ONLY to the areas NOT under federal control! The slaves in areas of the southern states where the federal armies controlled were NOT FREED!
Quite true.
Yeah, well I was born on a navy base in Illinois (Great Lakes)-navy brat. Well I lived all over and had a Southern Mom (Virginia) so I remember at all the family reunions (great way to get out of school as they were always in September), the older folks would talk about Sherman and how babies were burned alive in their beds and...an unmentionable thing (whispered) happened to attractive Southern ladies...my Dad was described (Northerner) as a ‘nice guy for a Yankee. The highest words of praise bestowed upon Yankees...by my family.
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You’ve got it completely backasswards, FRiend.
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No my friend, I do not have it backwards.
READ IT AGAIN.
Lincoln did not have the authority to free the slaves in the border states. That required a change to the constitution. A change that he pushed through congress in the form of the Thirteenth amendment.
His emancipation applied in all areas where he had the authority to apply it. As federal troops moved in, those slaves were freed.
The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862)
By the President of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof, in which states that relation is, or may be suspended or disturbed.
That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave-states, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states [and] may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent [with the consent] upon this continent, or elsewhere, [with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there elsewhere,] will be continued.
That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States [including the military and naval authority thereof] will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbents, recognize [and maintain the freedom of] such persons, as being free, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.
That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled “An Act to make an additional Article of War” Approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. that hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:
Article-. All officers or persons in the military or naval services of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitive from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.
SEC.2. And be it further enacted, that this act shall take effect from and after its passage.”
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled “An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are:
“SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, that all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.
“SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service.”
And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited.
And the executive will [in due time] [at the next session of congress] recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective states, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
A.L.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this twenty second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
Abraham Lincoln [signature]
By the President:
William H. Seward
Secretary of State
[edit] The Final Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863)
A PROCLAMATION
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
“That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.”
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
This is the biggest canard southern apologists use to justify southern secession. The Civil War was not fought to end slavery and I don't recall ever reading that or having it taught to me in school. The Civil War had everything to do with slavery, but was not about freeing the slaves.
Slavery was a southern institution fully immersed in Southerners’ mythological views about their culture. Anything that threatened slavery's existence was viewed as an attack on the south and its way of life. The election of antislavery Lincoln was the final straw for the south and they seceded. The fact the slaves were freed was a good outcome, but had the Southerners decided to rejoin the Union in late 1861 slavery would not have been abolished.
If Lincoln is adored it is no more so than Washington, Jefferson, or Jackson. Washington's leadership helped create this country, Lincoln's leadership preserved it.
Lincoln suffered from bouts of “melancholy” and had no more an abusive childhood than any other man of his time. The fact that with so little formal education he could write a document like the Gettysburg address or his Second Inaugural tells more about the man than a focus on his childhood or bouts with depression.
Most people don't realize that Sherman had worked and lived in the South just prior to the war. He had been Superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary. He actually loved the south and had hoped to return there to live at some point. Yes, property and agricultural destruction was a part of his "March to the Sea." His belief was that if you take the fight to the people, you break their will to conduct war. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.
Some historians view our dropping the bombs on Japan as overkill, and others believe that it saved lives. We took the war to the Japanese people, and in essence, destroyed their will to conduct further war. Some would say Sherman's destruction of the South helped save lives too, because it destroyed the South's ability to wage war. And of course, most Southerners see it differently, and that's their right. Afterall, they fought bravely, and died for that right.
During my years of research, I've tried to view both sides of the war, and the motives that drove each side. I've also tried to understand the atrocities that both sides inflicted on their fellow countrymen. I have to say though, that if I had to pick a side to support today, it would be the South's, and slavery has nothing to do with that decision.
Many were rounded up and became part of contraband regiments.
Abe was in office for 39 days when Sumpter was attacked. Besides, he didn’t want the money, he wanted the fort.
1. Abe vowed to defend the Constitution against all foes. It was still standing the day he was shot. Had he let the states secede, it would have been a dead letter.
2. All the arguments about the Emancipation Proclamation not withstanding, the slaves were freed.
3. The era of big government was not started by Abe, that was the Roosevelts and Wilson. RINOs and Democrats are still doing us in today.
Anti-free traders, return to the gold standard, Lincoln haters, conspiracy theorist, moonbats, RINOs: The democrats can have them all, the whole ship of fools.
“a little known fact is there were slaves in the union especially such states as Maryland and even further North.”
It’s actually a well known fact, although I’d be interested where there were slaves further north than the border states. As best I can tell, slavery was illegal in all the northern states. Being a pragmatist, Lincoln could not free the slaves in the border states or they might have joined the South. The Emancipation transformed the war and allowed slaves who left the South to attain freedom instead of being considered contraband. It was quite obvious that once the war was over, slavery would end, and a constitutional amendment did just that.
You are repeating Jubal Early’s ‘Lost Cause’ myth.
It was always about slavery between the two seperate governments, North and South.
Always.
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?
All true.
“You seem to forget that the SCOTUS ruled that slavery was legal in the Dred Scott decision.”
Not exactly. They ruled that since there were no laws banning slavery in the south Dred Scott had to be returned to his owner. The question before the Supreme Court was not whether slavery was legal, but whether someone had the right to confiscate someone’s property by moving it across state lines. While one can argue on both sides of the case, one also has to recognize that SCOTUS was actually doing what SCOTUS should do, ruling on constitutional law, and not making moral decisions having nothing to do with the constitution.
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