On this date in 1864 President Lincoln receives a Christmas gift.

[Bull Snipe]

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.

[HandyDandy]

Perhaps “topaccy” = tobacco? Just a thought.

[rustbucket]

Perhaps “topaccy” = tobacco? Just a thought.

That makes perfect sense actually. Thank you. I tried to find words in Hebrew and Russian that might mean furniture, bed, etc., taken out of the guy's house to protect it, but no luck. However, maybe the Jews were weeping about tobacco that they had moved out of a warehouse to the street to protect it from fire.

In the previous sentence is the mention of tobacco, but I never made the obvious connection until you mentioned tobacco. I thought it must be furniture that he moved out of "mine house." Here are the two sentences that preceded what I posted and then the part I posted:

The streets throughout this district were covered with the broken and burned remains of furniture of every variety. Near the new State House a large bonfire of tobacco, nearly two hundred feet long, fifty feet wide and five feet high, was burning and wasting its fragrance on the air. A number of Jews were standing nearby, weeping and exclaiming: "Me poor, me starb, starb, starb. Your mens come in mine house, kicks me out, sets fire to mine house. Me carry topaccy out on the street. Your mens puts wood on him and purns all mine topaccy."

Now it makes sense. There was a lot of tobacco burning. No wonder the Jewish guy was anguished about being or becoming poor and thought that he would starve.

[Kalamata]

>>Kalamata wrote: “Your comments are not surprising.”
>>DoodleDawg wrote: “You can certainly shut those comments down by listing the newspapers. I won’t even ask for all 300; 150 will do.”

I am not your research assistant. Do your own leg work, or trust in the scholars. Those are your choices.

*****************
>>Kalamata wrote: “No doubt that Neely is a devout Lincoln apologist who went out of his way to place the Lincoln administration in the most favorable light.”
>>DoodleDawg wrote: “And there we have it. You quote Neely without ever having read any of his works, and once it’s pointed out to you that he doesn’t in fact support your claims he becomes a “Lincoln apologist”. Not surprising.”

I HAVE read some of his books, and his research DOES support my understanding of those times. The fact that he is a Lincoln apologist comes from his “interpretation” of the data, which includes bending-over backwards to give Lincoln’s legacy the benefit of the doubt in virtually every case. He even attempt’s to place the Grant and Sheridan horror show in the Shenandoah Valley in a good light (See: The Shenandoah Valley: Sheridan And Scorched Earth, in Mark E. Neely Jr., “The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction.” Harvard University Press, 2007, Chapter 4)

But since you are also a Lincoln apologist, Neely’s bias may be beyond your ability to ‘observe’.

Mr. Kalamata

[OIFVeteran]

Your right, the United States went to war to preserve the Union against what they (and when I say they I mean the President, Congress, the majority of the northern people) believed was an illegal rebellion. Lincoln himself said this in his letter to Horace Greeley. You know the one, you’ve posted it often enough. Though you tend to leave out the last paragraph.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,

A. Lincoln

However the southern states did secede to protect slavery. Why? Because the Republican Party was the Pro-freedom party, just as they are the pro-life party nowadays.

The southern Democrats were the party of anti-freedom, just as democrats are the party of anti-life now.

Now during the war the United States added the goal of freeing those Americans held in bondage. Lincoln only had the constitutional authority to do this in states that were in rebellion. But he worked with congress to pass an amendment to get rid of slavery forever. Just as current pro-life people would like to pass a constitutional amendment saying life begins at conception to ban abortion forever.

Now the southern democrats claimed to be fighting for freedom, just as current democrats claim to be fighting for “choice”. But they were really fighting for the right to own other humans, just as democrats are really fighting for the right to kill children.

[Kalamata]

>>jeffersondem wrote: “I thought you had made a New Year’s Resolution to make issue-based arguments to support your deeply held opinions and to avoid visceral, personal attacks. You made it to January 2. It is not too late to turn away from the personal attacks.”
>>Joey wrote: “If you’ve read Kalamata’s posts, you know I’m grossly understating my critique of them and him.”

Joey cannot discuss a topic without casting aspersions. In his very first post to me on Free Republic, Joey (a non-scientist) lectured me (a scientist) on how ignorant I was about science. His 2nd post was a continuation of ad hominem attacks. We have been “FRiends” since. [/sarcasm]

The problem with know-it-alls, like Joey, is they have been name-calling for so long they don’t even realize their words are insulting. The only “insults” they hear are those thown back at them.

Mr. Kalamata

[Kalamata]

I forgot to ping you on #325.

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3802793/posts?page=325#325

Mr. Kalamata

[Kalamata]

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "However the southern states did secede to protect slavery. Why? Because the Republican Party was the Pro-freedom party, just as they are the pro-life party nowadays. The southern Democrats were the party of anti-freedom, just as democrats are the party of anti-life now."

That is incorrect. Blacks and mulattos were segregated as inferior in the antebellum North, and even restricted from entering at least one state. This is McPherson tip-toeing around Northern racism:

"ONE of the most formidable obstacles to the abolition of slavery and the extension of equal rights to free Negroes was the widespread popular and scientific belief, North as well as South, in the innate inferiority of the Negro race. Most white Americans took it for granted that Negroes were by nature shiftless, slovenly, childlike, savage, and incapable of assimilation as equals into white society. Since the beginning of the antislavery movement abolitionists had been confronted by arguments that Negroes belonged to a separate and inferior species of mankind; that they would work only under compulsion; that they could not take care of themselves in freedom and would revert to barbarism; and that emancipation would bring economic and social ruin to the South and the nation." [The Negro: Innately Inferior Or equal? in James M. McPherson, "The Struggle For Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction." Princeton University Press, 2014, Chap.VI, p.251]

This is de Tocqueville pulling no punches:

"Until now, wherever whites have been the most powerful, they have held Negroes in degradation or in slavery. Wherever Negroes have been the strongest, they have destroyed whites; it is the only accounting that might ever be possible between the two races.

"If I consider the United States of our day, I see clearly that in a certain part of the country the legal barrier that separates the two races is tending to fall, but not that of mores. I see slavery receding; the prejudice to which it gave birth is immovable.

"In the part of the Union where Negroes are no longer slaves, have they drawn nearer to whites? Every man who has lived in the United States will have noted that an opposite effect has been produced. [{In no part of the Union are the two races as separated as in New [England (ed.)] [v: the North].}]

"Racial prejudice seems to me stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where slavery still exists, and nowhere does it appear as intolerant as in the states where servitude has always been unknown.

"It is true that in the North of the Union the law allows Negroes and whites to contract legitimate unions; but opinion declares vile the white who joins in marriage with a Negro woman; and it would be difficult to cite an example of such a deed.

"In nearly all the states where slavery is abolished, the Negro has been given electoral rights; but if he presents himself to vote, he risks his life. Oppressed, he can make a complaint, but he finds only whites among his judges. The law opens the juror 's seat to him, but prejudice pushes him away from it. His son is excluded from the school where the descendant of the European goes to be instructed. In the theaters he cannot, even at the price of gold, buy the right to sit next to the one who was his master; in the hospitals he lies apart. The Black is allowed to beseech the same God as the whites, but not to pray to him at the same altar. He has his priests and his churches. The gates of heaven are not closed to him: but inequality scarcely stops at the edge of the other world. When the Negro is no more, his bones are thrown aside, and the difference in conditions is found again even in the equality of death.

"Thus the Negro is free, but he is not able to share either the rights or the pleasures or the labors or the pains or even the tomb of the one whose equal he has been declared to be; he cannot meet him anywhere, either in life or in death.

"[{What miserable mockery this is.}]

"In the South where slavery still exists, Negroes are less carefully kept aside; they sometimes share the labors of whites and their pleasures; to a certain point they are permitted to mix with them. Legislation ismore harsh in their regard; habits are more tolerant and milder. In the South the master is not afraid to raise his slave up to his level, because he knows that if he wishes he will always be able to throw him back into the dust. In the North the white no longer distinctly sees the barrier that should separate him from a degraded race, and he withdraws with all the more care from the Negro because he fears that someday he will merge with him.

"With the American of the South, nature sometimes reasserts its rights and for a moment reestablishes equality between Blacks and whites. In the North pride silences even the most imperious passion of man. The American of the North would perhaps consent to make the Negro woman the temporary companion of his pleasures if the legislators had declared that she must not aspire to share his bed; but she is able to become his wife, and he withdraws from her with a kind of horror.

"This is how in the United States the prejudice that pushes Negroes away seems to increase proportionately as Negroes cease to be slaves, and how inequality becomes imprinted in the mores as it fades in the laws. But if the relative position of the two races that inhabit the United States is as I have just shown, why have the Americans abolished slavery in the north of the Union, why do they keep it in the south, and what causes them to aggravate its rigors there?

"It is easy to answer. Slavery is being destroyed in the United States not in the interest of the Negroes, but in that of the whites."

[Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America." 2010, pp.553-556]

Lincolnites are forever burdened with having to hide or tip-toe around the black mark of Northern racism. The Cato Institute avoids it in this article, but did not hide Lincoln's involvement:

"['Southerners'] endorsed numerous out-and-out racist ideas, including the idea that blacks were less than human and that whites had not just the authority but even the responsibility to hold them as slaves. Lincoln, oddly enough, apparently shared some of these views. In his 1860 inaugural address, he said: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Two years later, President Lincoln wrote: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union (Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862). "And in 1858 Lincoln had written: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality." [Tibor R. Machan, "Lincoln, Secession and Slavery." CATO Institute, June 1, 2002]

Cato: Lincoln, Secession and Slavery

Lincoln's speeches are loaded with white supremacy; and until his dying days he planned and schemed to colonize the blacks.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Now during the war the United States added the goal of freeing those Americans held in bondage. Lincoln only had the constitutional authority to do this in states that were in rebellion. But he worked with congress to pass an amendment to get rid of slavery forever. Just as current pro-life people would like to pass a constitutional amendment saying life begins at conception to ban abortion forever."

That is misleading. Lincoln espoused full support for slavery in his First Inaugural, and soon introduced and promoted what became known as the Corwin Amendment to forever protect slavery:

"The following amendment to the Constitution (Corwin Amendment) relating to slavery was proposed by the 2d session of the Thirty-sixth Congress on March 2, 1861, when it passed the Senate, having previously passed the House on February 28, 1861. It is interesting to note in this connection that this is the only proposed (and not ratified) amendment to the Constitution to have been signed by the President. The President 's signature is considered unnecessary because of the constitutional provision that on the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress the proposal shall be submitted to the States for ratification.

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, viz:

Article Thirteen

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

[Presented By Mr. Brady Of Pennsylvania July 25, 2007, in "The Constitution of the United States of America as Amended: Unratified Amendments, Analytical Index." U. S. Government Printing Office, 2007, pp.29-30]

That 13th Amendment failed to pass.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Now the southern democrats claimed to be fighting for freedom, just as current democrats claim to be fighting for “choice”. But they were really fighting for the right to own other humans, just as democrats are really fighting for the right to kill children."

The first part is revisionist history. If you take the time to read reports from the battlefields, you will realize that most southern soldiers believed they were fighting for freedom against an invading tyrant. Of course, most southerners did not own slaves, nor benefitted from them.

Mr. Kalamata

[OIFVeteran]

Nice side step of my analogy with irrelevant arguments. Nowhere did I say the north was not racist. Most people in America were. However if we were to quantify the morality of the population on the subject of slavery in this period most peoples moral compass would say that the abolitionist who advocated total equality between the races were most morally correct( let’s mark that as our top of the scale, say a ten).

Lincoln with his often expressed belief that all men everywhere should be free would be a 7-8.

And the confederates/slave owners who ran the confederacy and believed that blacks were ordained by God to be slaves would be a 1. Or most morally wrong.

If racism really bother you that much you must really hate the leaders of the confederacy.

[Kalamata]

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Nice side step of my analogy with irrelevant arguments. Nowhere did I say the north was not racist."

Side step? You wrote,

"However the southern states did secede to protect slavery. Why? Because the Republican Party was the Pro-freedom party, just as they are the pro-life party nowadays."

That statement certainly appears to be equating the Republican Party with the north. Besides, not all slave states seceded, and it is doubtful that even a majority of the Republican Party was pro-freedom.

You also wrote,

"The southern Democrats were the party of anti-freedom, just as democrats are the party of anti-life now."

That is also a mischaracterization. Many, and possibly even a majority of, Republicans were "anti-freedom" for non-whites. This is typical of what is found in the literature:

"The Republican party made careful efforts to dissociate itself from public identification with the abolitionists and their doctrines. During the campaign Republicans frequently declared themselves the true "white man's party." Horace Greeley proclaimed that the Republican party "contemplates PRIMARILY the interest of Free White Labor, for which it struggles to secure the unoccupied territory of the Union." Democratic orators charged that Republicans intended to abolish slavery as soon as they had a chance. "That is not so," roared Greeley. "Never on earth did the Republican Party propose to abolish Slavery…. Its object with respect to Slavery is simply, nakedly, avowedly, its restriction to the existing states."

"Little wonder that abolitionists were sometimes disgusted with Republicans. "The Republican party means to do nothing, can do nothing, for the abolition of slavery in the slave states," said Garrison. "The Republican party stands on a level with the Fugitive Slave law." Josephine Griffing complained that Republican leaders were covertly trying to discourage abolitionists from holding meetings during the campaign, for they feared such meetings might jeopardize Republican success. "Their great effort," wrote Mrs. Griffing, "is to convince the public mind that they are not Abolitionists, and the Abolitionists, that they hate slavery as much as they do. 'For by their sorceries were all nations deceived.'"

[James M. McPherson, "The Struggle For Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction." Princeton University Press, 2014, pp.35-36]

Many Republicans, including many abolitionists, were seeking a white-only America. Many of those that supported freedom for the slaves, wanted that new-found freedom to be exercised somewhere else, and not in their backyards – not in this nation. Even their efforts to keep slavery out of the new territories were designed to create a white-only culture.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Most people in America were. However if we were to quantify the morality of the population on the subject of slavery in this period most peoples moral compass would say that the abolitionist who advocated total equality between the races were most morally correct( let’s mark that as our top of the scale, say a ten)."

True, but they were a small minority. For example, in the 1844 Election, won by Polk, the abolition party (the Liberty Party,) with James Birney at the top, won less than 3% of the vote.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Lincoln with his often expressed belief that all men everywhere should be free would be a 7-8."

Lincoln was one of many republicans who sometimes claimed that slaves should be freed; but, if so, not in this nation.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "And the confederates/slave owners who ran the confederacy and believed that blacks were ordained by God to be slaves would be a 1. Or most morally wrong."

Frankly, your incessant virtue-signaling is annoying. Perhaps this will help knock you off your pedestal:

"When one is happy in forgetfulness, facts get forgotten. In the happy contemplation of the Treasury of Virtue it is forgotten that the Republican platform of 1860 pledged protection to the institution of slavery where it existed, and that the Republicans were ready, in 1861, to guarantee slavery in the South, as bait for a return to the Union. It is forgotten that in July, 1861, both houses of Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, affirmed that the War was waged not to interfere with the institutions of any state but only to maintain the Union. The War, in the words of the House resolution, should cease "as soon as these objects are accomplished." It is forgotten that the Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 23, 1862, was limited and provisional: slavery was to be abolished only in the seceded states and only if they did not return to the Union before the first of the next January. It is forgotten that the Proclamation was widely disapproved and even contributed to the serious setbacks to Republican candidates for office in the subsequent election. It is forgotten that, as Lincoln himself freely admitted, the Proclamation itself was of doubtful constitutional warrant and was forced by circumstances; that only after a bitter and prolonged struggle in Congress was the Thirteenth Amendment sent, as late as January, 1865, to the states for ratification; and that all of Lincoln's genius as a horse trader (here the deal was Federal patronage swapped for Democratic votes) was needed to get Nevada admitted to statehood, with its guaranteed support of the Amendment. It is forgotten that even after the Fourteenth Amendment, not only Southern states, but most Northern ones, refused to adopt Negro suffrage, and that Connecticut had formally rejected it as late as July, 1865. It is forgotten that it was not until 1870 that the Negro finally won his vote—or rather, that very different thing, the right to vote.

"It is forgotten that Sherman, and not only Sherman, was violently opposed to arming Negroes against white troops. It is forgotten that, as Bell Irvin Wiley has amply documented in The Life of Billy Yank, racism was all too common in the liberating army. It is forgotten that only the failure of Northern volunteering overcame the powerful prejudice against accepting Negro troops, and allowed "Sambo 's Right to be Kilt"—as the title of a contemporary song had it.

"It is forgotten that racism and Abolitionism might, and often did, go hand in hand. This was true even in the most instructed circles, and so one is scarcely surprised to find James T. Ayers, a clergyman and a committed Abolitionist acting as recruiting officer for Negro troops, confiding to his diary his fear that freed Negroes would push North and "soon they will be in every whole and Corner, and the Bucks will be wanting to galant our Daughters Round." It is forgotten that Lincoln, at Charlestown, Illinois, in 1858, formally affirmed: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races." And it is forgotten that as late as 1862 he said to Negro leaders visiting the White House: "Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race.... It is better for us both to be separated."

"It is forgotten, in fact, that history is history.

"Despite all this, the War appears, according to the doctrine of the Treasury of Virtue, as a consciously undertaken crusade so full of righteousness that there is enough overplus stored in Heaven, like the deeds of the saints, to take care of all small failings and oversights of the descendants of the crusaders, certainly unto the present generation. From the start America had had adequate baggage of self-righteousness and phariseeism, but with the Civil War came grace abounding, for the least of sinners.

"The crusaders themselves, back from the wars, seemed to feel that they had finished the work of virtue. Their efforts had, indeed, been almost superhuman, but they themselves were, after all, human. "God has given us the Union, let us enjoy it," they said, in a paraphrase of the first Medici pope entering upon his pontificate. Men turned their minds outward, for external victory always seems to signify for the victor that he need spend no more effort on any merely internal struggle. Few shared the moral qualms expressed by Brooks Adams in an oration pronounced at Taunton, Massachusetts, on the great centennial of July 4, 1876. He demanded: "Can we look over the United States and honestly tell ourselves that all things are well within us?" And he answered: "We cannot conceal from ourselves that all things are not well."

"Brooks Adams, with his critical, unoptimistic mind, could not conceal it from himself, but many could; and a price was paid for the self-delusion. As Kenneth Stampp, an eminent Northern historian and the author of a corrosive interpretation of slavery, puts it: "The Yankees went to war animated by the highest ideals of the nineteenth-century middle classes.... But what the Yankees achieved—for their generation at least—was a triumph not of middle-class ideals but of middle-class vices. The most striking products of their crusade were the shoddy aristocracy of the North and the ragged children of the South. Among the masses of Americans there were no victors, only the vanquished." And Samuel Eliot Morison has written of his own section. New England: "In the generation to come that region would no longer furnish the nation with teachers and men of letters, but with a mongrel breed of politicians, sired by abolition out of profiteering."

[Robert Penn Warren, "The Legacy of the Civil War." Harvard University Press, 1961, pp.60-66]

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "If racism really bother you that much you must really hate the leaders of the confederacy."

If racism bothered you, you would not be extolling the virtues of Lincoln and the Civil War-era Republican Party.

Mr. Kalamata

[OIFVeteran]

I doubt you would be so tough talking about knocking people of pedestals if we were talking in person. And I find your constant lying to be sickening. You claim to be a veteran, but I find that highly unlike with your twisted, hateful view of American history.

But I will leave you with some quotes from on of the greatest president of this country. And some quotes from a traitor who was captured while fleeing in woman's clothing. However, I fear you are to blind to see the moral difference between the two.

Or perhaps you agree with Davis? I learned a different lesson in my 20+ years in the military. I served alongside people of all races and found some to be good, some to be average, and some to be bad. We were instructed at boot camp that it didn't matter if we were lite green or dark green, we were all green and all Marines.

Lincoln’s comments on slavery

"I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (July 10, 1858), p. 492.

"In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union.... ....I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ``all men are created equal.'' We now practically read it ``all men are created equal, except negroes.'' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ``all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty---to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy." Abraham Lincoln - Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 1855

"I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 255.

"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 266.

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature---opposition to it, is [in?] his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri compromise---repeal all compromises---repeal the declaration of independence---repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.... ...The doctrine of self government is right---absolutely and eternally right---but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government---that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal;" and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another."

Abraham Lincoln - Peoria Speech, 1854

"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."

---Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Henry L. Pierce, 1859

Jefferson Davis quotes on slavery.

"African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing." ~Davis

"My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be." ~Davis

"It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts...Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God - let him go to the Bible...I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation...Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments - in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.". ~Davis

[jeffersondem]

“And some quotes from a traitor who was captured while fleeing in woman’s clothing.”

That is an interesting comment (clothing). Can you provide historical sources and photographs for your claim that you believe to be true?

[Kalamata]

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "I doubt you would be so tough talking about knocking people of pedestals if we were talking in person."

Are you that insecure? I was referring to your pretense of moral superiority.

BTW, I am in my 70's, so I can only dream of the days when I enjoyed TKD sparring.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "And I find your constant lying to be sickening. You claim to be a veteran, but I find that highly unlike with your twisted, hateful view of American history."

I have told no lies, so that makes you the liar. I also told you that I love my country; and because I love my country, and because I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, I am obliged to expose Lincoln for destroying the checks and balances that were put in place by men far superior to him, as well as for destroying the lives of perhaps a million or more Americans in an unconstitutional war.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "But I will leave you with some quotes from on of the greatest president of this country. And some quotes from a traitor who was captured while fleeing in woman's clothing. However, I fear you are to blind to see the moral difference between the two."

No one, post-war, believed it could be proven that Davis was a traitor; so he was released from prison. Davis didn't make war against the United States; Lincoln did:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." [Law, "Constitution of the United States and Amendments." 1787, Article III, Sect. 3]

Yes, the traitor was Lincoln, who, as an American citizen, made war against the United States. Someone should have told Abe, "If you don't like the Constitution, there is an amendment process available to change it." Instead, he usurped power and destroyed the Union, along with half the countryside. Not unsurprising, you will find Lincoln-like doctrine in Mein Kampf:

"For it was not these [American] states that had formed the Union, on the contrary it was the Union which formed a great part of such so-called states. The very extensive special rights granted, or rather assigned, to the individual territories are not only in keeping with the whole character of this federation of states, but above all with the size of its area, its spatial dimensions which approach the scope of a continent. And so, as far as the states of the American Union are concerned, we cannot speak of their state sovereignty, but only of their constitutionally established and guaranteed rights, or better, perhaps, privileges." [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf: Manheim Translation." Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, p.566]

Compare with: First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861, in Roy P. Basler, "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln Vol 4." Rutgers University Press, 1953, pp.253-254

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Or perhaps you agree with Davis?"

I certainly do not agree with him on slavery, but I am 150 years too late to tell him about it. I would, however, like to thank him for his service in the Mexican-American War, but I am too late for that, as well. You do know he was a West Point graduate, don't you?

How about you? Do you agree with Lincoln on slavery? Do you believe it was right for his hero (Henry Clay) to be a slaveholder? Do you believe it was right for him to marry into a slave-holding family? Do you believe Lincoln was superior to blacks, as he claimed to be? Do you believe Lincoln was right in his goal of seeking a lily-white nation by colonizing the blacks back into a nation where they did not want to go? Do you believe Lincoln was right in seeking to forever enshrine slavery into the Constitution (with the Corwin Amendment?) Just curious . . .

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "I learned a different lesson in my 20+ years in the military. I served alongside people of all races and found some to be good, some to be average, and some to be bad. We were instructed at boot camp that it didn't matter if we were lite green or dark green, we were all green and all Marines."

Every branch of service teaches that all blood runs red.

You can feel free to climb down off your moral high-horse, any time. I will never accept that you are morally superior to me -- equals, perhaps, but not superior.

BTW, many of my friends are retired Marines, and most, if not all have similar opinions of Lincoln to mine. So this discussion has nothing to with who served in what branch. Why not try to debate the issues?

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "Lincoln’s comments on slavery: "I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Chicago, Illinois" (July 10, 1858), p. 492."

What did Lincoln say the next day? The reason I ask is, he was a master at speaking out of both sides of his mouth. This wasn't exactly the next day, but:

"I have again and again said that I would not enter into any of the States to disturb the institution of slavery. Judge Douglas said, at Bloomington, that I used language most able and ingenious for concealing what I really meant; and that while I had protested against entering into the slave States, I nevertheless did mean to go on the banks of Ohio and throw missiles into Kentucky to disturb them in their domestic institutions. I said, in that speech, and I meant no more, that the institution of slavery ought to be placed in the very attitude where the framers of this Government placed it, and left it. I do not understand that the framers of our Constitution left the people of the free States in the attitude of firing bombs or shells into the slave States." [Speech at Springfield, Illinois, July 17, 1858, in Roy P. Basler, "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln Vol 2." Rutgers University Press, 1953, p.517]

Yea, right . . .

Are you aware that, as a trial lawyer, Lincoln never represented a runaway slave? He represented a free woman to keep from being sold into slavery, but never a runaway. He did, however, represent a slave-owner in an attempt to help recover his fugitive slaves. David Donald wrote this about "the Great Emancipator" at work in 1847:

"When [Robert Matson's] slaves [Jane Bryant and children] ran away and, with the backing of local abolitionists, brought suit for their freedom, on the ground that the Northwest Ordinance forbade the introduction of slavery into the state of Illinois, Matson employed Lincoln, along with Usher F. Linder, to defend him. Characteristically Lincoln admitted his opponents' main argument, that the slaves were free if Matson had brought them to Illinois for permanent settlement, but he invoked the right of transit, which the courts had guaranteed to slaveholders who were taking their slaves temporarily into free territory. He placed great stress on Matson's public declaration, at the time he brought the slaves into Illinois, that he did not intend the slaves to remain permanently in Illinois and insisted that "no counter statement had ever been made publicly or privately by him." The circuit court ruled against Lincoln and his client, who, it was reported, left immediately for Kentucky without paying his attorneys' fees. Neither the Matson case nor the Cromwell case should be taken as an indication of Lincoln's views on slavery; his business was law, not morality." [David Herbert Donald, "Lincoln." Touchstone, 1996, pp.103-104]

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me;" Abraham Lincoln - Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 1855

It appears that Lincoln was so tormented about those slave irons in 1841 that he became forgetful -- forgetful enough that by 1847 he was willing to accept a case seeking to put Jane Bryant and her children back in irons.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 255.

Abe believed it was a "monstrous injustice," except when he was "doing business," such as defending a slaveholder.

*****************

>>OIFVeteran wrote: "What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Speech at Peoria, Illinois" (October 16, 1854), p. 266.

Tell that to a couple of million southerners, most of which were NOT slaveholders.

Abe Lincoln was a master politician -- a liar so accomplished he would make Bill Clinton envious. He was also the consummate hypocrite, claiming in his inaugural that secession was the essence of anarchy, but defending it in the case of West Virginia. And, of course, no person who hated slavery as much as Lincoln claimed would have attempted to permanently enshrine slavery's legality into the Constitution, as he did.

The bottom line is, Jefferson Davis was a slaveholder, which was cruel; but Lincoln was a coniving, blood-thirsty tyrant, which was far, far worse.

Mr. Kalamata

[Kalamata]

>>OIFVeteran wrote: “And some quotes from a traitor who was captured while fleeing in woman’s clothing."
>>jeffersondem wrote: "That is an interesting comment (clothing). Can you provide historical sources and photographs for your claim that you believe to be true?"

I don't recall James McPherson mentioning Davis being captured in a dress in his book, "Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief." He does mention the capture.

This is a journal article:

Was Jefferson Davis Captured In A Dress?

This article is supposedly written by a Confederate officer:

The True Story Of The Capture Of Jefferson Davis

In any case, it is much ado about nothing.

Mr. Kalamata

[BroJoeK]

WIJG: "Unfortunately, the Republican Party and Republican politicians do not always do what they are "supposed" to do.
I previously offered the example of G.H.W. Bush, who not only essentially 'lied' about tax increases, but instituted 'gun control' restrictions as well."

Sadly, it's true that not all Republicans live up to our own ideals, some seem eager to bend over to accommodate the Democrats' agenda.
You may remember that, hoping to win over "moderates", both Bushes in effect ran against other Republicans.
Bush Sr., for example promised to be "kinder and gentler" than Ronald Reagan!
Bush Jr. claimed to be a more "compassionate conservative" than other Republicans.
So everyone thought, "oh, isn't that nice: kinder, gentler and more compassionate, what could be wrong with it?"

The answer is, if Republicans won't fight for our principles, then Democrats will quickly take advantage of our weaknesses to grow Big Government at every little opportunity.

WIJG: "The same is true of Republican voters; they do not always do the 'right' thing.
We've discussed the situation in Virginia; that is reportedly the direct result of only 40% of the registered voters in Virginia, actually going to the polls last November."

Sadly, as government grows, so grows Democrat party strength in & around Washington, DC.
The irony is that leaders like Pat Robertson & Jerry Falwell spent decades weaning conservative Virginians away from their historical allegiances to the Democrat party, only to see their hard work nullified by Big Government supporting liberal Democrats moving in from other states.
When was the last time Republicans won statewide in Virginia?

WIJG: "All in all, it may be that we should put less emphasis on the traditional party names, and more emphasis on actual performance.
Someone else once observed (and I think it's quite appropriate) that today's major political parties might well be referred to as "the Dishonest Party" and "the Stupid Party"."

In years past there were somewhat conservative Democrats and liberal or "moderate" Republicans, these days not so much.
The old "Reagan Democrats" are now pretty solid Trump Republicans and a whole new generation of working Democrats -- black & Hispanic as well as white -- are beginning for the first time to think that maybe a Republican like Trump has better ideas for them.
We can call them Trump Democrats for now, still not locked-in conservatives, but starting to like what they see in our President.

So how often do we find a real leader like a Reagan or Trump -- once, twice, maybe three times in a century?
Not near as much as we want, but maybe, if we try sometimes, we can get what we need... ?

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "The colonists may have fired the first shot in the First War for Independence.
So what if they did?
It does not invalidate the actions of the Free and Independent States (even though 13 of those states were slave states)."

It depends on how you define "first shot".
At the Boston Massacre Brits were the only ones who fired, into a crowd.
At Lexington it's not known who fired first, but the casualties were one Brit and eight Americans.
More important, British Army presence in Lexington to confiscate American arms was itself an act of war, even without any shooting.

And it was only the latest in a long series of "Intolerable Acts" against Americans, including abrogating the 1691 Massachusetts Charter of self government.
So, in the 1770s Brits acted against Americans and Americans reacted to that "long train of abuses and usurpations".
In the 1860s Confederates acted against Americans, including abrogating the 1788 US Constitution, and so Americans reacted to Confederate aggressions, injury and oppressions...

By the time of the 1776 Declaration of Independence Americans had already fought over two dozen named battles against the Brits.
Nothing remotely similar existed in November 1860.

[rockrr]

Those stories impress me with what I liked best about ol jeffy - haughty and arrogant even in defeat, a thief, a coward, and the ultimate loser.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Lincoln actually added a slave state to the union.
I guess we can forever dismiss the notion that Lincoln 'fought to free the slaves.'
This, despite loud claims by some, that 'it was all about slavery.' "

Nonsense, of course Lincoln "fought to free the slaves", lawfully, which meant by Emancipation Proclamation in states in Rebellion, plus by 13th Amendment in loyal Union states.

As for West Virginia:

"On December 31, 1862 President Lincoln signed the West Virginia statehood bill on the condition that the new state provide some type of emancipation.
Waitman T. Willey, a Senator of Virginia under the aegis of the Restored Government in Wheeling, composed an emancipation amendment to the constitution to be ratified by public vote on March 26, 1863.
It became known as the Willey Amendment...

...The Willey Amendment was approved by public vote and on April 20, 1863.
President Lincoln issued a proclamation that West Virginia had met all requirements and would become a state on June 20, 1863.[78]
In anticipation of the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution the Wheeling legislature passed a bill ending slavery in West Virginia on February 3, 1865."

Lincoln approved of gradual abolition as represented by that Willey amendment and Lincoln lived long enough to see full abolition in West Virginia.
That's because, following fellow Union slave-states Maryland & Missouri, West Virginia fully abolished slavery in early 1865, 11 months before ratification of the 13th amendment.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "Joey cannot discuss a topic without casting aspersions.
In his very first post to me on Free Republic, Joey (a non-scientist) lectured me (a scientist) on how ignorant I was about science."

Kalamata claims to be a scientist, but his posts make perfectly clear he's just the opposite, he's anti-science.
Worse, he dishonestly claims that whatever Kalamata believes is science, while what he disagrees with is not.
So "science" in Kalamata's world-view begins with the Bible and ends wherever it might be seen to conflict with Kalamata's interpretations of Biblical text.

As for "casting aspersions", that's what Kalamata does -- it's not just his modus operandi, it's also his raison d'etre.

Kalamata: "The problem with know-it-alls, like Joey, is they have been name-calling for so long they don’t even realize their words are insulting.
The only “insults” they hear are those thown back at them."

"Know-it-all" certainly describes Kalamata, with smears, name-calling & insults his major weapons.
He also brings a large repertoire of tactics for denying reality and asserting his own fantasies.

In all fairness, Kalamata's ability to word-search whole libraries full of books & documents in order to deliver accurate quotes is beyond anything I can approach or have seen elsewhere.
Yes, I've seen him abuse quotes, for example, to make a scientist like Stephen Gould sound anti-science, but I've never yet seen, or caught, Kalamata faking quotes.

[Who is John Galt?]

Thanks, sir (as Bull Snipe says on occasion, 'I don't disagree')!

;^)

[DoodleDawg]

Mr. Olive is also a young earth Creationist so I’d be curious as to just what kind of scientist he is supposed to be.