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.

[DoodleDawg]

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

You are the one making the claim. The fact that you have no interest in whether or not it's true if not at all surprising.

I HAVE read some of his books, and his research DOES support my understanding of those times.

If you had read any of them then you would not be claiming as fact statements he never made and conclusions he never arrived at.

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata to OIFVeteran: "I have told no lies, so that makes you the liar."

I've seen nothing honest from Kalamata.
Even his admittedly accurate quotes he uses to serve Big Lies about history, science and the United States.

He claims to be a scientist (and veteran?!) but his voice & tone are those of a master propagandist.

Kalamata "I also told you that I love my country; and because I love my country..."

Total lies, Kalamata loathes & despises his real country and instead loves some fantasy which might be described as what the antebellum South would have become had Pickett & Pettigrew been better supported by Longstreet & Alexander.

Kalamata "...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."

All lies, but in this case they well support my argument that Kalamata hates to his soul the United States of America.

Kalamata "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:"

And Kalamata's bald-faced lies just never stop.
How messed-up does a man's soul have to be to claim that those who formally declared war against the United States, on May 6, 1861, were fighting for it and those who fought to defend the Union were against it?

And this from a man who claims to be a "scientist".
In truth there's nothing scientific going on inside Kalamata's brain, it's all just blatant, absurd & obscene propaganda that would make a PJ Goebbels blush.

Kalamata: " Not unsurprising, you will find Lincoln-like doctrine in Mein Kampf:"

And the shameless smears just never stop.

Kalamata: "I certainly do not agree with him [Jefferson Davis] on slavery, but I am 150 years too late to tell him about it."

In fact, Kalamata agrees with everything Davis did in defense of the Confederate Slave-Republic, and disagrees with everything Lincoln did to oppose it.

Kalamata: "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 . . ."

All lies.
Recolonization (as it was called) was a voluntary program first proposed by President Jefferson and supported by Federal & states' funding beginning in 1820.
It never really worked and Lincoln's efforts failed also.
By 1865 Lincoln had given up on it and instead sought full citizenship for freed slaves, including voting rights.

And that, it is said, is what caused John Wilkes Boothe to murder Lincoln.

As for Corwin, Lincoln did not "support" it, but did not oppose it because he believed it would change nothing practical and might help hold some slave-states in the Union, which it did.
Corwin was a small bit of what Southerners like Jefferson Davis had said they wanted and was as far as Lincoln would go to meet them half-way.

Kalamata: "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."

Everyone who tells the truth, even occasionally, is morally superior to Kalamata who absolutely refuses to, under any circumstances.

Kalamata: "BTW, many of my friends are retired Marines, and most, if not all have similar opinions of Lincoln to mine. "

And doubtless some Marines also voted for Presidents Carter, Clinton & Obama.
But not a majority.

By the way, it's worth noting that when President Trump holds huge rallies in places like Alabama & Louisiana, he always reminds them that we are, yes, the "party of Lincoln."
It's not a big applause line in those states, but our President is not afraid to say it there.

Kalamata: "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."

In fact, Lincoln was 100% consistent.
Slavery in Union states was abolished peacefully, by constitutional amendments, not by Proclamation or force of arms.

Kalamata: "He [Lincoln] represented a free woman to keep from being sold into slavery... "

In 1841, Lincoln's first slavery case, Bailey v. Cromwell, Lincoln successfully got the Illinois Supreme Court to rule: "the presumption [is] . . . every person was free, without regard to race . . . the sale of a free person is illegal."[2]

This overturned the same court's 1828 ruling against the same defendant, Nance Legins-Costley, then saying: "A servant is a possession and CAN BE SOLD.”[5]

Nance Leggins-Costly and her children were the first of roughly four million slaves Lincoln freed.

"In 1845, [Lincoln] successfully defended Marvin Pond (People v. Pond)[10] for harboring the fugitive slave John Hauley"

Kalamata: "He [Lincoln] 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:"

In 1847, while serving in Congress, Lincoln argued in Matson v. Ashmore, the legally correct position that transient slaveholders in Illinois retained title to their "property" temporarily.
Lincoln lost the case because the court ruled, among other things, that two years "in transit" is not "temporary" but permanent relocation and so declared Anthony Bryant & family free.

This was also the issue in Dred Scott, where the US Supreme Court (crazy Roger Taney) reversed such lower court rulings.

"While a congressman from Illinois in 1846 to 1848, Lincoln supported the Wilmot Proviso, which, if it had been adopted, would have banned slavery in any U.S. territory won from Mexico.[11]

Lincoln, in collaboration with abolitionist Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, wrote a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a popular vote on the matter.[12][13] (Slavery in the District of Columbia was not ended until 1862, when Lincoln was president and there were no Southern senators.) "

Lincoln's work against slavery began early in life and lasted through his last days on Earth.

Kalamata: "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."

Well... Jane Bryan was a 1930s era actress, who married a wealthy businessman, James Dart, in 1939.
They had three children and lived, so far as we know, happily ever after.

What Kalamata refers to here is the 1847 Matson v. Ashmore trial which involved a foreman slave named Anthony Bryant, his wife Jane and their children, one of whom was sent back to Kentucky, by slaveholder Matson.
Anthony Bryant sought legal protection and was actually imprisoned at the time of trial.
He was not a fugitive.

We might notice that the Bryant child returned to Kentucky was not effected by Illinois court rulings and so family reunion could only have happened had Anthony Bryant been returned to his slaveholder, Matson.
Eventually Anthony Bryant's family recolonized to Liberia, but we are not told what happened to the child sent back to Kentucky.

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

That Lincoln lost the case should tell us something and that he won others against slavery should tell us more.

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

This is a point about which our Lost Causers always lie, even though they certainly know the truth of the matter.
It's this:

1. Across the Deep Cotton South almost half of families owned slaves meaning many who didn't had close slaveholding relatives.
   So virtually every Confederate soldier from the Deep South brought a strong family commitment to slavery to the battle.

2. In the Upper South slave ownership was much less, perhaps only 25% of families overall, with many regions having few to no slaves -- i.e., Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina.
   In those low-slavery regions, most of the young men volunteered for the Union cause or were forced at gun-point into Confederate ranks.

3. In the Union Border slave-states ownership was even lower, 10% of families on average, and much larger regions with very few slaves.
   Those states refused to secede even after Fort Sumter, and provided on average two Union troops for every one Confederate Army soldier.

Kalamata: "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."

Lies, the truth is Davis was all of those, Lincoln none.

[Kalamata]

>>Joey wrote: “Kalamata claims to be a scientist, but his posts make perfectly clear he’s just the opposite, he’s anti-science.”

No, Joey. I am anti-Junk Science, such as the junk science of evolutionism.

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

>>Joey wrote: “Worse, he dishonestly claims that whatever Kalamata believes is science, while what he disagrees with is not.”

No, Joey. I trust science as presented by scientists when it is verifiable. I distrust junk science, such as evolutionism, because there is no evidence to support it.

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

>>Joey wrote: “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.”

Joey is always making up stories, like a good little evolutionist. That seems to be all the evolutionist knows how to do is make up just-so stories. There is certainly no evidence that supports it.

I, personally, have been a Christian for most of my life; but I was an evolutionist and an old-earther until this decade when I saw contrary evidence for the first time. When I realized the evidence pointed to a global flood, I didn’t discard it like a religious fanatic would. I followed the evidence wherever it led me. That is what scientists are (supposedly) trained to do.

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

>>Joey wrote: “As for “casting aspersions”, that’s what Kalamata does — it’s not just his modus operandi, it’s also his raison d’etre.”

Again, I am a counter-puncher.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: “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.”
>>Joey wrote: “”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.”

Yeah, sure, Joey . . .

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

>>Kalamata wrote: “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.”

I was blessed to be able to attend five great universities, Joey.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: “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.”

Joey will not provide an example of me “making a scientist like Stephen Gould sound anti-science,” because he cannot.

Mr. Kalamata

[Kalamata]

>>Kalamata wrote: “I am not your research assistant. Do your own leg work, or trust in the scholars. Those are your choices.”
>>DoodleDawg wrote: “You are the one making the claim. The fact that you have no interest in whether or not it’s true if not at all surprising.”

Tell me why you believe Lincoln was not a blood-thirsty, power-hungry gangster, and I will point you to additional information on newspaper closures.

*****************
>>Kalamata wrote: “I HAVE read some of [Neely] books, and his research DOES support my understanding of those times.
>>DoodleDawg wrote: “If you had read any of them then you would not be claiming as fact statements he never made and conclusions he never arrived at.”

Such as?

Mr. Kalamata

[jeffersondem]

“It depends on how you define “first shot”.”

This, you say, in response to my post 319 which reads in its entirety: “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 would be interesting for you now to define “first shot” in any fashion - any fashion - that would invalidate the actions of the colonists. I don’t think you can do it; and I’m surprised you have suggested that it can be done.

I repeat(about the possibility the independence seekers fired the first shot): So what if they did?

Yes, I know the 13 states seeking freedom from the King were slave states.

[jeffersondem]

“Nonsense, of course Lincoln “fought to free the slaves”, lawfully . . . by 13th Amendment in loyal Union states.”

That is an interesting comment.

Can you explain your claim that Lincoln had to fight a war to add the 13th amendment in loyal Union states?

[jeffersondem]

“On December 31, 1862 President Lincoln signed the West Virginia statehood bill on the condition that the new state provide some type of emancipation.”

I knew West Virginia was added to the Union as a slave state. Thank you for the confirming citation.

After the emancipation proclamation, the United States was the most powerful slave nation in North America, perhaps the world.

[Kalamata]

>>Joey wrote: "I've seen nothing honest from Kalamata. Even his admittedly accurate quotes he uses to serve Big Lies about history, science and the United States."

Joey cannot provide any examples.

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

>>Joey wrote: "He claims to be a scientist (and veteran?!) but his voice & tone are those of a master propagandist."

Joey has been hanging around progressives so much he no longer recognizes conservative thought.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "I also told you that I love my country; and because I love my country..."
>>Joey wrote: "Total lies, Kalamata loathes & despises his real country and instead loves some fantasy which might be described as what the antebellum South would have become had Pickett & Pettigrew been better supported by Longstreet & Alexander."

I love and cherish the Constitution, Joey, something you are obviously ignorant of. You have been brainwashed by your progressive buddies into believing it is living constitution, rather than a legal document.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "...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."
>>Joey wrote: "All lies, but in this case they well support my argument that Kalamata hates to his soul the United States of America."

Joey cannot point to any lies, because he is the liar.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "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:"
>>Joey wrote: "And Kalamata's bald-faced lies just never stop."

My statements are 100% accurate, Joey; but you are too brainwashed to consider them.

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

>>Joey wrote: "How messed-up does a man's soul have to be to claim that those who formally declared war against the United States, on May 6, 1861, were fighting for it and those who fought to defend the Union were against it?"

Under the Constitution of the United States (something Joey cannot comprehend,) the Confederate States were a foreign nation at the time Lincoln declared war on them on April 15, 1861. This is Davis:

"The declaration of war made against this Confederacy by Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, in his proclamation issued on the 15th day of the present month, rendered it necessary, in my judgment, that you should convene at the earliest practicable moment to devise the measures necessary for the defense of the country. The occasion is indeed an extraordinary one. It justifies me in a brief review of the relations heretofore existing between us and the States which now unite in warfare against us and in a succinct statement of the events which have resulted in this warfare, to the end that mankind may pass intelligent and impartial judgment on its motives and objects… I cannot close this review of the acts of the Government of the United States without referring to a proclamation issued by their President, under date of the 19th instant, in which, after declaring that an insurrection has broken out in this Confederacy against the Government of the United States, he announces a blockade of all the ports of these States, and threatens to punish as pirates all persons who shall molest any vessel of the United States under letters of marque issued by this Government. Notwithstanding the authenticity of this proclamation you will concur with me that it is hard to believe it could have emanated from a President of the United States. Its announcement of a mere paper blockade is so manifestly a violation of the law of nations that it would seem incredible that it could have been issued by authority; but conceding this to be the case so far as the Executive is concerned, it will be difficult to satisfy the people of these States that their late confederates will sanction its declarations - will determine to ignore the usages of civilized nations, and will inaugurate a war of extermination on both sides by treating as pirates open enemies acting under the authority of commissions issued by an organized government. If such proclamation was issued, it could only have been published under the sudden influence of passion, and we may rest assured mankind will be spared the horrors of the conflict it seems to invite." [Jefferson Davis, "Message to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, April 29, 1861." Avalon Project, April 29, 1861]

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_m042961.asp

Few in that day and age could believe Lincoln would perform such a lawless act. Lincoln attempted to disguise his declaration of war as the suppression of an insurrection; but only the naive would accept that false premise. The Southern states were trying to escape his and the "republican" madness, not rebel against them.

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

>>Joey wrote: "And this from a man who claims to be a "scientist". In truth there's nothing scientific going on inside Kalamata's brain, it's all just blatant, absurd & obscene propaganda that would make a PJ Goebbels blush."

Joey is such a child.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "Not unsurprising, you will find Lincoln-like doctrine in Mein Kampf:"
>>Joey wrote: "And the shameless smears just never stop."

The truth is never a smear, Joey. It can cause hurt, and even anger, but it is never a smear. Your lies, however, are smears.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "I certainly do not agree with him [Jefferson Davis] on slavery, but I am 150 years too late to tell him about it."
>>Joey wrote: "In fact, Kalamata agrees with everything Davis did in defense of the Confederate Slave-Republic, and disagrees with everything Lincoln did to oppose it."

What did Lincoln do in defense of his Slave-Republic, Joey? You are aware that four slave states did not secede, are you not? Are you also aware that Lincoln's so-called "Emancipation Proclamation" didn't apply to them. In fact, it didn't free a single slave. And, of course, there is that pesky Corwin Amendment that would have made slavery in the slave states permanent.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "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 . . ."
>>Joey wrote: "All lies. Recolonization (as it was called) was a voluntary program first proposed by President Jefferson and supported by Federal & states' funding beginning in 1820. It never really worked and Lincoln's efforts failed also."

No, Joey. It is all true. His Haitian experiment failed because the person he chose to run the operation, Bernard Koch, embezzled most of the appropriated funds. His so-called "Emancipation Proclamation" was somewhat of a fall-back scheme:

"Did He Ever Lose Faith In A Borrowed Plan To Solve The Slavery Question?

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.... Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation....

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.... We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN December 1, 1862

"Although Abraham Lincoln was a master of words, few of his passages are more powerful than these lines from his annual message to Congress in the second year of the war. Made public precisely one month before the promised final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was due, they seem almost to have come from a life-long ardent abolitionist.

"Not so.

"This passage is the president's final argument to Congress, urging the adoption of three proposed amendments to the Constitution. Collectively, the amendments incorporate basic features of his borrowed plan for solution of the slavery problem: abolition by individual states, with compensation to owners, and colonization of black Americans "with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States." Had lawmakers been sufficiently inspired by Abraham Lincoln's winged words to act promptly upon his recommendations, the Emancipation Proclamation would not have been issued. Speedy adoption of his proposed amendments would have made the document obsolete before it could take effect."

[Webb Garrison, "The Lincoln No One Knows: the mysterious man who ran the Civil War." Rutledge Hill Press, 1993, pp.185-186]

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

>>Joey wrote: "By 1865 Lincoln had given up on it and instead sought full citizenship for freed slaves, including voting rights. "

I am not so sure about that, Joey I have read several sources that imply Lincoln was considering colonization until his death. For example:

"It is not clear that by his death Lincoln had abandoned his belief in colonization. "I am happy that the President has sloughed off that idea of colonization," Lincoln's secretary John Hay wrote in his diary on July 1, 1864. As late as November 30, 1864, Attorney General Edward Bates gave an affirmative answer to Lincoln's question of whether Mitchell could continue as "your assistant or aid [sic] in the matter of executing the several acts of Congress relating to the emigration or colonizing of the freed Blacks," even though Congress had embargoed funds for further experiments with colonization. General Benjamin F. Butler claimed that shortly before his death, Lincoln had told him in a meeting in the White House: "I wish you would carefully examine the question and give me your views upon it and go into the figures, and you did before in some degree, so as to show whether the Negroes can be exported..." According to Butler, he told Lincoln two days later: "Mr. President, I have gone very carefully over my calculations as to the power of the country to export the Negroes of the South, and I assure you that, using all your naval vessels and all the merchant marine fit to cross the seas with safety, it will be impossible for you to transport to the nearest place for them... half as fast as Negro children will be born here." Although some historians have questioned Butler's veracity, there is no reason to doubt his account in light of Lincoln's obsession with the colonization scheme." [Michael Lind, "What Lincoln Believed." Doubleday, 2005, pp.224-225]

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

>>Joey wrote: "And that, it is said, is what caused John Wilkes Boothe to murder Lincoln."

I seriously doubt slavery was John Wilkes Booth's motives. The reign of terror on the South by Sherman and Sheridan was the more likely motive.

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

>>Joey wrote: "As for Corwin, Lincoln did not "support" it, but did not oppose it because he believed it would change nothing practical and might help hold some slave-states in the Union, which it did. Corwin was a small bit of what Southerners like Jefferson Davis had said they wanted and was as far as Lincoln would go to meet them half-way."

Lincoln signed it, Joey, which was unheard of for an Amendment proposal since that was strictly a congress-states matter. No doubt he was an accomplished liar, but he said over and over again that the "union" was his goal, with or without slavery.

Lincoln's ultimate goal was getting filthy rich (along with his friends) using the power of the federal purse, fiat currency, and crony capitalism. This is a statement by Senator John Sherman (William T.'s brother) on a proposed fiat currency bill. Note the date of Feb 10, 1863:

"I may be like other men who have thought a great deal on a particular subject. I may give to this question an undue importance; but with me it is all important. The establishment of a national currency, and of this system, as the best that has yet been devised, appears to me all important. It is more important than the loss of a battle. In comparison with this, the fate of three million negroes held as slaves in the southern States is utterly insignificant. I would see them slaves for life as their fathers were before them, if only we could maintain our nationality. I would see them free, disenthralled, enfranchised, on their way to the country from which they came, or settled in our own land in a climate to which they are adapted, or transported anywhere else, rather than to see our nationality overthrown. I regard all those questions as entirely subordinate to this. Sir, we cannot maintain our nationality unless we establish a sound and stable financial system; and as the basis of it we must have a uniform national currency. So it seems to me. I may be wrong: but so strong is my conviction on this subject that I believe the passage of this bill, by which our financial system may be harmonized, and by which we shall have what has always been desired by the statesmen of America, a sound national currency, is more important than any measure that we can pass." [Senator John Sherman, U.S. Senate, February 10, 1863, on bill (S. No. 486,) to provide a national currency, in John C. Rives, "The Congressional Globe: 37th Congress 3rd Session." U. S. Government Printing Office, 1863, p.845]

No doubt Sherman was speaking for Lincoln.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "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."
>>Joey wrote: "Everyone who tells the truth, even occasionally, is morally superior to Kalamata who absolutely refuses to, under any circumstances."

That leaves you out, Joey.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "BTW, many of my friends are retired Marines, and most, if not all have similar opinions of Lincoln to mine. "
>>Joey wrote: "And doubtless some Marines also voted for Presidents Carter, Clinton & Obama. But not a majority."

No, Joey. All of my friends are devout conservatives and patriots. You, on the other hand, support the ACLU when it sues financially-strapped communities for the sole purpose of maintaining evolution as the established religion taught in public schools.

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

>>Joey wrote: "By the way, it's worth noting that when President Trump holds huge rallies in places like Alabama & Louisiana, he always reminds them that we are, yes, the "party of Lincoln." It's not a big applause line in those states, but our President is not afraid to say it there."

I was brainwashed about Lincoln until early this century, while in my mid 50's.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "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."
>>Joey wrote: "In fact, Lincoln was 100% consistent. Slavery in Union states was abolished peacefully, by constitutional amendments, not by Proclamation or force of arms."

Lincoln's goal with blacks was colonization, Joey, resulting in a white America. Frederick Douglass certainly didn't believe Lincoln accepted the black man as an equal.

"It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was pre-eminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed constitutional guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave States. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln." [Frederick Douglass, "Oration by Frederick Douglass - unveiling of the Freedman's monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln." Pathway Press, 1940, pp.12-13]

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "He [Lincoln] represented a free woman to keep from being sold into slavery... "
>>Joey wrote: "In 1841, Lincoln's first slavery case, Bailey v. Cromwell, Lincoln successfully got the Illinois Supreme Court to rule: "the presumption [is] . . . every person was free, without regard to race . . . the sale of a free person is illegal."

Nance was never a slave, Joey, so Lincoln was representing a free woman.

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

>>Joey wrote: "Nance Leggins-Costly and her children were the first of roughly four million slaves Lincoln freed."

Lincoln didn't free anyone, Joey. He turned a republic into a crony-capitalist police state, and sentenced blacks to a century of segregation and 2nd-class citizenship, and worse. The Jim Crow North was certainly no friend of the blacks.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "He [Lincoln] 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:"
>>Joey wrote: "In 1847, while serving in Congress, Lincoln argued in Matson v. Ashmore, the legally correct position that transient slaveholders in Illinois retained title to their "property" temporarily. Lincoln lost the case because the court ruled, among other things, that two years "in transit" is not "temporary" but permanent relocation and so declared Anthony Bryant & family free."

I guess you missed the hypocrisy, Joey. Lincoln sought to put the family back in slave irons.

BTW, I was quoting David Donald's book, "Lincoln".

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

>>Joey wrote: "This was also the issue in Dred Scott, where the US Supreme Court (crazy Roger Taney) reversed such lower court rulings. . . Lincoln's work against slavery began early in life and lasted through his last days on Earth."

Lincoln had nefarious motives, Joey. It wasn't about slavery as much as he wanted the territories to be lily-white.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "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."
>>Joey wrote: "What Kalamata refers to here is the 1847 Matson v. Ashmore trial which involved a foreman slave named Anthony Bryant, his wife Jane and their children, one of whom was sent back to Kentucky, by slaveholder Matson. Anthony Bryant sought legal protection and was actually imprisoned at the time of trial. He was not a fugitive. We might notice that the Bryant child returned to Kentucky was not effected by Illinois court rulings and so family reunion could only have happened had Anthony Bryant been returned to his slaveholder, Matson. Eventually Anthony Bryant's family recolonized to Liberia, but we are not told what happened to the child sent back to Kentucky."

Try to follow the narrative, Joey. A mere 6 years after supposedly being tormented by seeing slaves in slave irons, Lincoln represented a slaveholder with the sole purpose of putting the black family back in irons.

He was a con-man, Joey. All he cared about was power and money and living among whites.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "Abe believed it was a "monstrous injustice," except when he was "doing business," such as defending a slaveholder."
>>Joey wrote: "That Lincoln lost the case should tell us something and that he won others against slavery should tell us more."

Are you claiming Lincoln lost on purpose, Joey, or are you trying desperately to salvage his reputation?

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "Tell that to a couple of million southerners, most of which were NOT slaveholders."
>>Joey wrote: "This is a point about which our Lost Causers always lie, even though they certainly know the truth of the matter. It's this: Across the Deep Cotton South almost half of families owned slaves meaning many who didn't had close slaveholding relatives. . ."

You tend to mischaracterize things, Joey, so, what is your source? I have read that only about 25% of southerners owned slaves OR belonged to a slave-holding family. That would place the actual number of slaveholders below 25%.

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

>>Kalamata wrote: "The bottom line is, Jefferson Davis was a slaveholder, which was cruel; but Lincoln was a conniving, blood-thirsty tyrant, which was far, far worse."
>>Joey wrote: "Lies, the truth is Davis was all of those, Lincoln none."

Lincoln was all of those, and much more, Joey.

Mr. Kalamata

[BroJoeK]

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

Our Lost Causers love to cackle & crow over Lincoln's incognito 1861 sneak through Baltimore into Washington, DC, in which it was sometimes alleged Lincoln travelled dressed as a woman.
They're not nearly as sanguine about Jefferson Davis' capture while fleeing from Richmond.

Fake news, 1860s style.
Lincoln dressed in night-shirt sneaking through Baltimore, 1861.
Jefferson Davis disguised escaping from Richmond, VA, 1865.

[BroJoeK]

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."

For what it's worth, the word "kalamata" is Greek for "reed" as in "weak reed arguments", and can also be read to sound like "good eyes" as in "refuses to use his good eyes to see what is".

As for which branch of science is his expertise, I think I can guess, based on his posts here, he must have advanced training, degrees and long experience in the sciences of propaganda and denial.

It could also be "Biblical Science"...

[BroJoeK]

Kalamata: "No, Joey. I am anti-Junk Science, such as the junk science of evolutionism."

Naw, you're anti-science period.
You oppose any branch or ideas of science which conflict with your own theories of "Biblical science".

Kalamata: "No, Joey.
I trust science as presented by scientists when it is verifiable.
I distrust junk science, such as evolutionism, because there is no evidence to support it."

Nonsense, you deny all science, not just evolution theory, which conflicts with your own ideas of "Biblical science".

Kalamata: "Joey is always making up stories, like a good little evolutionist.
That seems to be all the evolutionist knows how to do is make up just-so stories.
There is certainly no evidence that supports it."

Like any propagandist, rather than confess the truth, Kalamata switches over to personal attacks.

Kalamata: "I, personally, have been a Christian for most of my life; but I was an evolutionist and an old-earther until this decade when I saw contrary evidence for the first time.
When I realized the evidence pointed to a global flood, I didn’t discard it like a religious fanatic would.
I followed the evidence wherever it led me.
That is what scientists are (supposedly) trained to do."

Naw, you deliberately followed fake evidence which lead you to a predetermined conclusion, "Biblical science".

Kalamata: "Again, I am a counter-puncher."

Naw, you don't wait to "counter-punch", you're in there with personal attacks & smears whenever things get even a little... dicey for you.

Kalamata: "I was blessed to be able to attend five great universities, Joey."

I am impressed with your research skills, but not your honesty or reasoning ability.

Kalamata: "Joey will not provide an example of me “making a scientist like Stephen Gould sound anti-science,” because he cannot."

You've posted any number of quotes from Gould and used them to argue your own anti-science opinions.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "It would be interesting for you now to define “first shot” in any fashion - any fashion - that would invalidate the actions of the colonists.
I don’t think you can do it; and I’m surprised you have suggested that it can be done."

Naw, you just inferred more than I implied.
Sure, I "get" that you & other Lost Causers wish to argue there was something inherently unlawful in American 1770s era responses to British "abuses and usurpations", so you can equate those to Confederates in 1860.
But there wasn't.

Instead, many years before colonial militiamen lined up at Lexington to confront British regulars, the British government had begun work to redefine and restrict American self-government and impose direct British rule.
That is what colonists resisted, "no taxation without representation" they said, and the harder Brits pushed, the more colonists resisted.
When Brits began using military force, colonists responded with military force and Revolutionary War was on.

Nothing remotely similar happened in 1860.

[OIFVeteran]

I must admit your citing abilities are impressive. Also, though you do not outright lie you are a master at spinning and twisting the facts.

The truth is that Lincoln had always been against slavery. His parents were abolitionist and he was raised in an abolitionist church. He regularly spoke out and acted against slavery from early in his political career. In 1837 he was one of only six Illinois legislators to vote against a resolution affirming slavery's constitutionally protected status and condemning the spread of abolitionism.

His views on slavery did not change, his views on race did. He went from believing that black could and should not be political equals to whites to believing some blacks should have the right to vote.

The bottom line up front is that the southern slave holders didn't like the results of a freely held election in our constitutional republic and decided to resort to the bullets instead of the ballot box. They could have stayed in the republic and attempted to enact laws to allow peaceful secession, they did not. Unlike our founding fathers who endured years of abuses and usurpations upon their rights as English men.

The reason they rebelled is perhaps one of the worst reasons any group of people have rebelled against their current government, to protect their property in humans. This is an indisputable fact because the southern slave owners at the time of their rebellion stated this fact over and over again. From their declarations of secession to their speeches and letters to other slave states in efforts to get them to rebel against the constitution. Here is just one example our of 100s that I could show you.

"In view of such effects and consequences here from the mere possession of one branch of Congress we ought not to shut our eyes to the effects of the possession of the government in all of its departments by any Black Republican. It would abolitionize Maryland in a year, raise a powerful abolition party in Va., Kentucky, and Missouri in two years, and foster and rear up a free labour party in [the] whole South in four years. Thus the strife will be transferred from the North to our own friends. Then security and peace in our borders is gone forever. Therefore I deeply lament that any portion of our people shall hug to their bosoms the delusive idea that we should wait for some "overt act." I shall consider our ruin already accomplished when we submit to a party whose every principle, whose daily declarations and acts are an open proclamation of war against us, and the insidious effects of whose policy I see around me every day. For one I would raise an insurrection, if I could not carry a revolution, to save my countrymen, and endeavor to save them in spite of themselves." – Letter from Senator Robert Toombs to Alexander Stephens-February 10,1860

As far as the reason the common southern soldier was fighting? It really matters not. No matter what your personal reason for serving your country you are in actuality fighting for the aims of that government. But even considering that many southern soldiers knew exactly what they were fighting for, and expressed this in letters.

"The vandals of the North . . . are determined to destroy slavery . . . We must all fight, and I choose to fight for southern rights and southern liberty." [Lunsford Yandell, Jr. to Sally Yandell, April 22, 1861 in James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, p. 20]

"A stand must be made for African slavery or it is forever lost." [William Grimball to Elizabeth Grimball, Nov. 20, 1860, Ibid.]

"This country without slave labor would be completely worthless. We can only live & exist by that species of labor; and hence I am willing to fight for the last." [William Nugent to Eleanor Nugent, Sept 7, 1863, Ibid., p. 107]

"Better, far better! endure all the horrors of civil war than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the South to the altar." [William M. Thomson to Warner A. Thomson, Feb. 2, 1861, Ibid., p. 109]

"A captain in the 8th Alabama also vowed 'to fight forever, rather than submit to freeing negroes among us. . . . [We are fighting for] rights and property bequeathed to us by our ancestors.' " [Elias Davis to Mrs. R. L. Lathan, Dec. 10, 1863 Ibid., p. 107]

"Even though he was tired of the war, wrote a Louisiana artilleryman in 1862, ' I never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person. There is too many free n----rs. . . now to suit me, let alone having four millions.' " [George Hamill Diary, March, 1862, Ibid., p. 109]

"A private in the 38th North Carolina, a yeoman farmer, vowed to show the Yankees ' that a white man is better than a n----r.' " [Jonas Bradshaw to Nancy Bradshaw, April 29, 1862 Ibid.]

"A farmer from the Shenandoah Valley informed his fiancée that he fought to assure 'a free white man's government instead of living under a black republican government.' " [John G. Keyton to Mary Hilbert, Nov. 30, 1861, Ibid.]

"The son of another North Carolina dirt farmer said he would never stop fighting the Yankees, who were 'trying to force us to live as the colored race.' " [Samuel Walsh to Louisa Proffitt, April 11, 1864, Ibid.]

"Some of the boys asked them what they were fighting for, and they answered, 'You Yanks want us to marry our daughters to the n----rs.' " [Chauncey Cook to parents, May 10, 1864, Ibid.]

"An Arkansas captain was enraged by the idea that if the Yankees won, his 'sister, wife, and mother are to be given up to the embraces of their present dusky male servitors.' " [Thomas Key, diary entry April 10, 1864, Ibid.]

"Another Arkansas soldier, a planter, wrote his wife that Lincoln not only wanted to free the slaves but also 'declares them entitled to all the rights and privileges as American citizens. So imagine your sweet little girls in the school room with a black wooly headed negro and have to treat them as their equal.' " [William Wakefield Garner to Henrietta Garner, Jan 2, 1864, Ibid.]

So instead of worrying so much about the mote in President Lincoln's eye you should be worrying about the beam in the eyes of the southern leaders.

[central_va]

128th Ill. Inf.

Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the regiment suffered 700 desertions. The regiment was disbanded on April 1, 1863, by order the War Department. Citing "an utter want of discipline" in the regiment, Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas dismissed the regiment's commanding officer Colonel Robert M. Hundley, 29 other officers, and the regimental chaplain, from Union service on April 4.[3]

The few remaining men of the 128th Illinois were consolidated into a detachment under command of First Lieutenants W. A. Lemma, William M. Cooper, and Assistant Surgeon George W. French and reassigned to 9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment (3 Years).[4]

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Can you explain your claim that Lincoln had to fight a war to add the 13th amendment in loyal Union states?"

That's not exactly what I said, nevertheless...

The 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments grew out of the Civil War and are part of the basis for arguing it was a "war to set men free".
Clearly without secession & war those Amendments could not have been ratified.

But most slaves were freed by Lincoln's wartime Emancipation Proclamation in Confederate states, others by states' self-abolition in some Union slave-states (Maryland, West Virginia & Missouri) and the remainder by ratification of the 13th Amendment in Kentucky & Delaware.

And this confuses your Lost Causer heart in what way?

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "I knew West Virginia was added to the Union as a slave state.
Thank you for the confirming citation."

And Lincoln lived long enough to see West Virginia abolish slavery in February 1865.

[DoodleDawg]

For what it's worth, the word "kalamata" is Greek for "reed" as in "weak reed arguments", and can also be read to sound like "good eyes" as in "refuses to use his good eyes to see what is".

It's also a kind of olive that I'm not too fond off though my sister loves them and insists on serving them at family get-togethers.

As for which branch of science is his expertise, I think I can guess, based on his posts here, he must have advanced training, degrees and long experience in the sciences of propaganda and denial.

He has a talent for cut-and-past though I don't think that's a science.

[OIFVeteran]

So what? I’ve never claimed the north was free of racism, nor has any historian I’ve ever read. You, like Kalamata, which to draw attention to the mote in the northern eyes and ignore the beam in the southern eyes. Show me anywhere that any leader of the pretend confederacy said anything remotely like the following examples of the leaders in the south;

“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.

(Letter to Horace Greeley 1862)

“I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians - however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant's lash, and the cries of his tortured victims.”

Thaddeus Stevens

I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom.

Thaddeus Stevens

As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.

Ulysses S. Grant

The fact that you refuse to admit is the southern rebels fired upon and declared war on the United States to protect slavery. It was one of the worst causes that any group has started a war for in the history of mankind. Nothing you say or do will change that fact.

[DoodleDawg]

No, Joey. I trust science as presented by scientists when it is verifiable. I distrust junk science, such as evolutionism, because there is no evidence to support it.

OK so you don't trust Geology, Physics, Zoology, Biology, Meteorology, Astronomy, Botany, Anthropology, Archeology, or Paleontology. Perhaps an easier question might be what scientific disciplines do you trust?

[DoodleDawg]

Tell me why you believe Lincoln was not a blood-thirsty, power-hungry gangster, and I will point you to additional information on newspaper closures.

Well then let's use your standard for documentation. Lincoln wasn't a blood-thirsty, power hungry tyrant because people said he wasn't. How's that?