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).
***
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.”
***
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 ...
I’m kind of busy today but I am reviewing the documents you posted. I’ll get back to you after I have looked at them, but suffice to say I do not see Anderson criticizing Lincoln. As to concern for a war starting, that was pretty obvious to Anderson looking out and seeing thousands of rebels with their guns leveled on him. No good soldier ever wants to see a war start.
That is unrealistic. The Southern states were barely able to hold back such measures, but they realized that inevitably it was futile.
Go read the articles of secession by the Southern states. They do not refer to tariffs but repeatedly refer to the protection of slavery as the reason for secession.
3 or 4 do. But they also include economic arguments, and most of the states didn't even issue such documents.
It has become a propaganda trick to claim that the 3 or 4 (depending on how you count it) that specifically mention slavery as a reason for secession, speak for all 11 states, most of which don't cite it as justification.
"Read the documents" these people put out, as if they would just come out and tell the North "We are taking our money back out of your pockets!"
Most people don't want to attract attention to the fact they would be putting a serious hurt on people by stopping the money flow. Better to misdirect them with some "Look Squirrel!!!"
With some justification, slaveholders feared that abolitionist agitations would inspire slaves to flee North or to revolt.
They really were worried about slave revolts. John Brown probably did a lot to convince people secession was necessary.
I understand. I get that way more often than I like.
...but I am reviewing the documents you posted. I’ll get back to you after I have looked at them, but suffice to say I do not see Anderson criticizing Lincoln.
He is alarmed at the plan, the responsibility for which ultimately lies with Lincoln. Yeah, it was Gustavus Fox's plan, but Lincoln authorized it.
As to concern for a war starting, that was pretty obvious to Anderson looking out and seeing thousands of rebels with their guns leveled on him.
His environment was like that since January of 1861. He actually trained confederate General Beauregard in Artillery at West Point. I don't think it was the guns arrayed against him that made him worry when he wrote that letter.
With time, a sense of realism, and flexibility, the South could have defused the time bomb of slavery by easing conditions and working toward emancipation. Sadly, the slaveholder class chose secession, thinking that it would be easy to found a new nation.
That was going to happen anyway, but it does not address the reason why the North invaded them. It was about the money.
Sadly, the slaveholder class chose secession, thinking that it would be easy to found a new nation.
It would have been if the North would have just left them alone. But of course that wasn't going to happen because of the money.
Here I disagree. It would have passed. All they needed to do was pick off one or two senators. That's done all the time. Remember when Obama exempted an entire state from Obamacare to get it passed? The certainty of the Morrill Tariffs passage is what drove the original 7 seceding states out.
Go read the articles of secession by the Southern states. They do not refer to tariffs but repeatedly refer to the protection of slavery as the reason for secession.
Sigh. I don't know how many times we have to go through this. Of the 4 states that issued declarations of causes only Mississippi talked about slavery alone. Texas talked about a range of issues from malicious failure to provide border security to unequal economic legislation to deliberately trying to provoke a slave insurrection to violating the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. Georgia went on at considerable length about the economic causes. South Carolina attached the address of Robert Barnwell Rhett and sent it out along with its declaration of causes. Rhett's address went on at great length about the economic causes.
The thing is no matter how much Southerners hated the tariffs and unequal federal outlays for corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects, they were not unconstitutional. There was no way they could say they were. They were unfair as can be, but they were not unconstitutional. What was actually unconstitutional was the Northern states refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. On this point the seceding states really could say the Northern states violated the compact between them.
With some justification, slaveholders feared that abolitionist agitations would inspire slaves to flee North or to revolt.
Northerners certainly did not want Blacks living amongst them - witness the Black Codes. I doubt there was much fear of some mass flight of slaves to the North. They did cite Northern fanatics trying to cause slave revolts AND the refusal of the Northern states to either prosecute or extradite people who supported and financed terrorist attacks like John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry.
So your argument is that because the SCOTUS lacked the guts to hear a case before the income tax was repealed, it was therefore Constitutional?....even though they ruled other attempts to impose an income tax unconstitutional? That's like saying the 2020 election was not fraudulent since the federal courts lacked the guts to hear a case on the merits.
I didn’t say it was. I just pointed out the Confederates had an income tax. Kind of like those 25% tariffs they had. ;~))
and I pointed out that in a war of national survival any government will impose taxes, seize assets, etc even if it is unconstitutional. The fact that the Confederate government did so while confronted with a major war does not mean the Confederate Constitution did not in fact set a 10% limit on tariffs or that the Southern states did not want a very low tariff because that suited their export-import based economy.
Its "ex parte" and I'm quite sure I learned that in law school. The executive branch was obligated to respect a ruling by the judicial branch. Since the military is part of the executive branch........
Long before John Brown, the Denmark Vesey conspiracy and Nat Turner's rebellion demonstrated that violent slave revolts were a tangible risk. In addition, poisoning and violent assaults by slaves were feared by the South's slaveholders. John Brown's attack at Harper's Ferry hit a raw nerve.
Always left out of these discussions is the fact that 5 states in the Upper South did not choose to leave until ordered by Lincoln to provide troops to attack other states and impose a government on them that they did not consent to.
Again, if I was going to threaten $700 million in Northern trade and income, I would certainly point to something else to misdirect what I am really doing.
But you keep focusing on the South's alleged reason (as if you have to justify a right to independence) than you are on the actual real point of this discussion, which is the North's reason for invading them.
The North should be on the defensive here. The South had a right to leave, and the North had no right to stop them.
Why did the North invade them? It clearly wasn't because of slavery.
Long before John Brown, the Denmark Vesey conspiracy and Nat Turner's rebellion demonstrated that violent slave revolts were a tangible risk. In addition, poisoning and violent assaults by slaves were feared by the South's slaveholders. John Brown's attack at Harper's Ferry hit a raw nerve.
From what I have read on the topic, they were always afraid of the possibility the slaves would revolt. They had allowed them to become so numerous that they then feared them as a threat.
And of course the North wouldn't punish anyone for sending the John Brown raid. It's just like the Liberal states with ANTIFA or BLM.
I never said that. I simply asked when the court found the Civil War income tax unconstitutional.
Well then this whole exchange has simply backed up what I said from the start which is that in a war, governments will resort to anything they think necessary to win. The fact that the Confederate government later imposed high tariffs to raise money for the war of national survival they were engaged in does not mean they somehow never wanted a high tariff or did not really object to high tariffs being imposed on them.
Consider that the Declaration urges that "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Yet you insist that while slavery is prominently mentioned in the official Southern statements of secession, economics was the real reason. If you are accurate, that obscurity takes Southern secession away from the requirement of the Declaration that the causes be stated.
Moreover, the Declaration states that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This principle makes slavery ineligible as a legitimate basis for secession.
As for whether the North had a right to oppose secession, the Declaration did not claim that Britain had no right to try to keep America as a colony. So why do you insist that the North had no right to try to preserve the Union?
Hummm? That’s all well and good except for one thing. The Confederate congress passed those high tariffs in May of 1861… (see the cover image I posted) several months before the first significant fighting.
What other excuses do you have for their “Protective” tariffs. ;~))
Wrong. That's where “Nonacquiescence” comes into play. No acquiescence is when one branch believes that another branch is stepping on their territory.
It's obvious that the Lincoln administration thought that Taney was messing in the Executive branches authority to deal with civil insurrection. And as to “The Supreme Court” ruling in ex parte Merryman that's total bull crap. It was Taney, acting alone as a circuit court judge, in ex parte, i.e. not even meeting with anyone else, making that ruling. It was not the Supreme Court. It was one screwed up partisan pro confederate judge.
They were faced with imminent invasion. What excuse do you have for Lincoln imposing an income tax? :^)
Wrong. That applies to administrative agencies its not a license for the executive to simply ignore the federal courts. Its obvious Lincoln just didn't want to comply with the federal courts ruling when he was busy trampling on the constitution and civil liberties. I didn't say the Supreme Court issued a ruling. I said federal court. Taney was riding circuit. Oh, and federal courts have consistently ruled the exact same way Taney ruled in this case....ie his ruling was constitutionally correct.
Really? That’s funny because this letter from Major Anderson to Governor Pickins was in the link you sent me.
Hummm. 4 months before the firing on Fort Sumter. 3 months before Lincoln even took office. The Doughface pro Confederate Buchanan was president.No. 16. To His Excellency, the Governor op South Carolina :
[MAJOR ANDERSON TO THE GOVERNOR.]
Sir : Two of your batteries fired this morning upon an unarmed vessel bearing the flag of my Government. As I have not been notified that war has been declared by South Carolina against the Government of the United States, I cannot but think that this hostile act was committed without your sanction or authority. Under that hope, and that alone, did I refrain from opening fire upon your batteries.I have the honor, therefore, respectfully to ask whether the above-mentioned act — one I believe without a parallel in the history of our country, or of any other civilized Government — was committed in obedience to your instructions, and to notify you if it be not disclaimed, that I must regard it as an act of war, and that I shall not, after a reasonable time for the return of my messenger, permit any vessels to pass within range of the guns of my Fort. In order to save, as far as in my power, the shedding of blood, I beg that you will have due notification of this my decision, given to all concerned. Hoping, however, that your answer may be such as will justify a further continuance of forbearance on my part, I have the honor to be, Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major 1st Artillery U. S. A., Commanding.
Fort Sumter, S. C, January 9, 1861.
So how did Lincoln fire the first shots in Charleston harbor.
True. There doesn't need to be. The states do not derive their sovereign powers from the constitution. The federal government does...and its powers are only those delegated to it by the sovereign states. So if the constitution is silent on the matter, that means it is a right reserved by the states.
and neither do the terms of the Declaration of Independence did not support Southern secession.
Sure it does. If anything, the states had far more right to secede than the colonies did. The states were recognized as sovereign. The colonies were not. The states also had the precedent of the colonies seceding from the British Empire.
Consider that the Declaration urges that "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Yet you insist that while slavery is prominently mentioned in the official Southern statements of secession, economics was the real reason. If you are accurate, that obscurity takes Southern secession away from the requirement of the Declaration that the causes be stated.
No it doesn't. Pointing out that the Northern states had violated the compact between them by violating the fugitive slave clause of the constitution establishes the legal case. Yet despite that, Georgia, South Carolina (via Rhett's Address) and Texas went on at length about the economic causes. Texas also mentioned the malicious refusal to provide border security which was a federal responsibility.
Moreover, the Declaration states that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This principle makes slavery ineligible as a legitimate basis for secession.
Obviously not since the 13 colonies all had slavery when they seceded from the British Empire. Furthermore, the Declaration of Secess.....errr.....Independence also says that government derives its legitimacy from the CONSENT of the governed.
In fact, President Jefferson Davis cited this in his first inaugural address "the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."
As for whether the North had a right to oppose secession, the Declaration did not claim that Britain had no right to try to keep America as a colony. So why do you insist that the North had no right to try to preserve the Union?
The Union was voluntary and each state was bound only by its VOLUNTARY act of ratifying the Constitution. 3 states including 2 Northern states and Virginia expressly reserved the right to unilaterally secede at the time that they ratified the Constitution. Nobody said this was in any way inconsistent with the Constitution.
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