Posted on 02/11/2026 10:47:43 AM PST by T Ruth
Director Steven Spielberg, whom I introduced last week [in 2012] at Gettysburg at ceremonies marking the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech, said he was deeply humbled to be delivering an address on that history-making spot.
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… Daniel Day-Lewis gives the definitive portrayal of our time, perhaps ever, of Honest Abe.
For people like me, who have spent their lives studying Abraham Lincoln, the film is chilling — as if he’s really come to life.
Day-Lewis does it by avoiding the traps most Lincoln actors fall into, the stoic, “Hall of Presidents”-esque stereotype that probably most Americans imagine.
There are no moving pictures of Lincoln, no recordings of his voice. But after his death, everyone was Lincoln’s best friend, and there are descriptions of everything from his accent to his gait.
The most important thing is the voice. Far from having a stentorian, Gregory Peck-like bass, Lincoln’s was a high, piercing tenor. Those who attended his speeches even described it as shrill and unpleasant for the first 10 minutes, until he got warmed up (or his endless stories managed to cow them into submission).
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Few great people are appreciated in their time. And it’s good to remember that, no matter how right the decisions seem now, they were hard-fought then.
“I wanted — impossibly — to bring Lincoln back from his sleep of one-and-a-half centuries,” Steven Spielberg said at Gettysburg, “even if only for two-and-one-half hours, and even if only in a cinematic dream.”
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Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln. ...
[At the end of the article Holzer gives thumbnail reviews of all prior Lincoln films, ranking them from worst to best, which Holzer considers to be Spielberg’s.]
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
"Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)
South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams
My law professors were very squirrely about laying out exactly what happened after the war and the constitutionality of it. Everybody agreed to the 13th amendment to abolish slavery. The Southern elected representatives took up their seats again and voted for it and Southern states ratified it. Everybody well understood slavery was abolished and gone and that had been decided - and everybody accepted that.
Then I was taught that Radical Republicans "laid a trap" in the proposed 14th and 15th amendments basically annihilating the rights of the states and making them little more than administrative conveniences for the federal government AND dictating who each state could elect as a representative. The Southern states refused to pass these. THEN the Radical Republicans using raw military force declared the elected Southern representatives were somehow not valid and imposed military occupation on the Southern states. They also disenfranchised the vast majority of the voters in the Southern States.
They prosecuted the war on the argument that the Southern states had never lawfully left the union.....then turned right around 180 degrees and said the Southern states were "out" and had to agree to the 14th and 15th amendments to get back "in"....even though they were never out. Somehow.
I asked what article of the Constitution allowed ANY OF THIS and they hemmed and hawed and never gave a straight answer. Basically their answer amounted to "Well.....it was done so we have to accept it now". Not one bit of any of it was even remotely constitutional. Those amendments were never lawfully passed. The federal government does not get to disenfranchise voters in a state nor dictate whom they may elect nor set terms under which unconstitutional tyrannical conditions imposed on them will be lifted.
This is why I say the original constitution died at Appomattox. It did.
If I explain this to you, will you remember it? I'm getting tired of playing these stupid little games where you pretend not to understand something.
Why didn't they go to Southern ports before the war?
The taxes are the same no matter where they land, and Charleston is 800 miles further South, which would take an additional week of sailing. With no additional profit to be made, why would they go anywhere so far out of their way? And foreign ships can only carry trade to one port.
The situation changes dramatically after secession when you drop the tariffs from (Union)35-50% down to (Confederacy)10-13%. Now companies can make an additional 25-37% profit, and with the "Navigation act of 1817" no longer constraining their travel to other American Ports, their profits and potential profits could increase tremendously.
Foreign ships would be able to undercut Northern ships and make even more profits because of the greatly reduced tariff costs.
Big money for foreign and American ships trading in the South *AFTER* secession, but no benefit from doing it before secession.
That's what happens when the South was pumping 65 million per year into their economy just from taxes, and many millions more besides from Northern control of shipping and protectionist laws forcing the South to buy Northern products.
After the war? The entire South had become one big slave for the North.
He said as a kid growing up in Mississippi, he and his friends would fantasize about what they would have done to make sure the South won the Civil War.
I don't know what they could have done to win. The North outnumbered them by about five times, so it's very difficult to beat such heavy odds against you.
They could have "won" just by staying out of war, but since I have learned all the things Lincoln was doing and would do to make certain there was a war, I don't think "staying out of war" with an opponent five times bigger than you was a realistic option.
They probably should have just taken the short term losses and refused to use any Northern shipping or buy Northern products. Eventually they might have been able to extricate themselves from Northern control of their industries, but it would have been a hard thing for them to do, if it was even possible.
I can answer the question, but that answer is a whole hell of a lot more complicated than the simply issue of how the South produced 72% of all Federal revenue.
Since you aren't trying to understand that, why would I want to add another even more complicated topic to the discussion?
Tell us how the South paid 75% of the federal taxes. Show us the data.
See? This is what I mean. If you can't understand that the region which *PRODUCED* 72% of the government's revenue through their product exchange with Europe, how can you possibly understand a more complex topic?
But I think your problem is not that you can't understand, it's that you won't understand.
I make this argument whenever this topic comes up. Over at Instapundit, I got a comment from Glenn Reynolds, who is the law professor that runs the place.
When I pointed out the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were not lawfully ratified, he mentioned that this issue has long been discussed in academic circles. Apparently there is a body of legal professors that agree with the point.
The 13th was actually legally passed!
Remember when the Southern states rejected the 14th and 15th amendments AND THEN the Radical Republicans said they were “out” and their democratically elected representatives were not legitimately seated? Yeah well.....the ratification of the 13th amendment by those very same representatives and states was deemed legit! So they’re legitimate when they vote the way we want them to vote but they’re not legitimate and can therefore be unseated and those states subjected to military occupation when they vote in a way that we don’t like. This is pure banana republic stuff.....yet that’s exactly what they did....as I said, even my Con Law professors were obviously embarrassed about it when I asked as a law student.
Diogenes is apparently thinking that the tariff was some sort of income tax and that the South “earned” foreign money for the country and was taxed on that income. That’s not true. The tax was on imports.
Southern plantation owners didn’t have stacks of pounds, marks and francs lying around. That foreign currency stayed with the bankers. Northerners were earning enough US money to buy foreign goods with that foreign currency. There weren’t enough planters to buy 72% of what the US imported.
Also, there’s no point in being cynical and skeptical about politicians if you naively believe everything Southern radical politicians said to promote secession.
There it is. You won’t explain it to me because I’m not smart enough to understand it. Try it. Maybe I’ll get a sudden burst of IQ. Exactly how did the South produce 72% of the governments revenue. You keep claiming it. You wouldn’t do that with no data to back you up, would you?
Really. Where are they. Please identify who they are or what they have written on the post Civil War amendments not being lawfully enacted.
Really. Where are they. Please identify who they are or what they have written on the post Civil War amendments not being lawfully enacted.
If there were no exports there would have been no imports. Once again, someone is trying to tell me that stuff can come out of the Horse with nothing going into the Horse.
Northerners were earning enough US money to buy foreign goods with that foreign currency.
And it comes down to the same question I have asked previously. How do Northerners earn enough foreign currency to buy foreign products? BroJoeK tries to finesse the question by pointing to Gold purchases, but this cannot be sustained indefinitely, and nations are loath to give up their gold when they can use trade instead.
Europe bought Northern items with 28% of their trade. How did Northern customers get enough foreign cash or credit to buy more than that?
My answer is they wrangled it out of the Southern trade with Europe.
You don't even understand this part. Let me know when you've deciphered that complete mystery, and then maybe i'll try to explain the more complicated issue to you.
You will have to take that up with Professor Reynolds. He is the one that made the comment.
With occupation armies controlling the South, I don't believe any amendment can legally be passed.
The States and their reps became puppets of Washington DC.
. Maybe you have a different professor in mind. In my law classes, I have heard some speculation as to the exact meaning toward the 14 amendment, but I have never heard condemnation of them.
OK fair enough. My position is that everybody accepted the abolition of slavery and didn’t really contest it. It was the consolidation of power in imperial Washington that Southerners did not accept.
Maybe you have a different professor in mind. In my law classes, I have heard some speculation as to the exact meaning toward the 14 amendment, but I have never heard condemnation of them.
Both of your points are immaterial to what I said. He said it was much discussed in academic circles.
But in order for it to be "much discussed", there has to be two sides, presumably one that agrees the amendments were not passed legally.
But tell me now law professor, what does the law think of contracts made under duress?
I very greatly doubt the people of the South agreed to this. They just knew they couldn't stop it, and so resigned themselves to it happening.
We are led to believe they fought a long bloody war to keep slavery, and then we are expected to believe they just gave it up willingly?
These two notions don't fit in the same universe with each other.
Amazing.
Federal revenue in 1860 was primarily driven by customs duties (tariffs) and public land sales, with total receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1860, amounting to approximately $56 million.
Got any more fables?
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