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?
Lost causers always like to claim Lincoln was a tyrant. Congress had recessed prior to the firing on Fort Sumter. Lincoln called Congress into an extraordinary session and they met on July 4th, 1861. Hardly the actions of a tyrant. If he was the tyrant they claim he would not have called this session nor even let them assemble.
The 37th Congress, with both houses now controlled by Republicans due to the seceding states representatives leaving, then approved all actions President Lincoln had taken up to that time as necessary to preserve the Union. They then began passing laws to help win the war. One of these being the confiscation act of July 1862.
Congress also exercised its constitutional duties of overseeing the process of the war. Many of these committees were very acrimonious to Lincoln and defeats of the Union army on the battlefield. The congressional record shows that even democratic copperheads were given their turn to talk.
Lincoln was far from a tyrant. He, and the 37th congress, were exercising their constitutional powers to suppress the largest insurrection in the countries history.
>>DoodleDawg wrote: “Lincoln wasn’t a blood-thirsty, power hungry tyrant because people said he wasn’t. How’s that?”
People also say he was. I am now one of those.
I am not too proud to admit I was wrong. I used to be one of yours.
Mr. Kalamata