Finally, an honest Abe

New York Post ^ | Nov. 25, 2012 | Harold Holzer

[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.

***

… 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.]

[x]

"When the only tool you've got is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails."

You keep trying to shoehorn "slavery" into every decision made in that era because that suits what you want to believe.

Everybody was talking about slavery in the 1860s. It's you who are trying to "shoehorn" your obsession with the evil Yankees into every discussion.

You claim to be a cynic, but you fall for every stupid line of slaveowner propaganda.

[Ditto]

Lincoln started the shooting in Charleston. Even Major Anderson admitted that.

Ok. I have read through you documents on Fort Sumter. Two points.
1. Lincoln Did Not fire the first shots. The Confederates did. They even admitted it.
2. I read Major Anderson letters. Anderson never said a word about “Lincoln firing the first shot”. He lamented the start of the war. He knew his Command at Sumter would be easily overrun. But he was loyal to the Army and the Union throughout.

[Rockingham]

Well put. In the North, public sentiment strongly favored fugitive slaves, even to the point of crowds gathering to impede the efforts of slave catchers. Alert Southern slaveholders realized well enough that effective enforcement of fugitive slave laws in the North had become impossible by the time of Lincoln’s election.

[DiogenesLamp]

Secessionists didn’t trust the Republicans. They thought Lincoln would use his appointment power to build up the Republican Party in the Border States. Eventually, slavery would be abolished in those states and the Republicans would organize in the Upper South and do the same there.

Show me your math. How many upper South states would they have to flip before they could pass a constitutional amendment to ban slavery?

The secessionists recognized the Corwin Amendment as a last minute attempt to hold the country together.

If they would just wait till all or most of the slave states left, they could quickly pass an amendment to ban slavery.

Of course, when given the chance, they immediately tried to pass an amendment to protect slavery.

[DiogenesLamp]

“Stronger” fugitive slave laws apparently means non-enforcement or repeal of the Northern states personal liberty laws.

Like Illinois, where you could sell any black person into slavery if they didn't have their paperwork proving they were free?

[DiogenesLamp]

Everybody was talking about slavery in the 1860s.

So we are constantly told. I know the people who were trying to gain power from using it as a tool, talked about it constantly.

Remember the liberals talking about "children in cages."

Same kind of phenomena.

You claim to be a cynic, but you fall for every stupid line of slaveowner propaganda.

The economic numbers are more persuasive to me than anything either side says on the matter.

Money talks. Bullsh*t walks.

[DiogenesLamp]

1. Lincoln Did Not fire the first shots. The Confederates did. They even admitted it.

Lincoln was Greedo. Beauregard was Han Solo.

Lincoln pointed the gun. Beauregard fired first because he had a gun pointed at him.

[Rockingham]

The paradox of Southern slaveholding was that, for all the talk of it resting on liberty and a right to hold slaves as property, the preservation of slavery required increasingly stringent measures. This meant slave patrols and intrusive laws and police action. In most places in the South, it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, and emancipation was forbidden or made difficult.

In addition, the visible energy and success of so many free blacks was unsettling to slavery because it contradicted assertions that it reflected a natural order based on race. Moreover, if so minded, free blacks could become a ready and active means of subverting slavery.

So long as the Union stood intact, abolitionist Northerners might overwhelm the South's system for maintaining slavery, and especially so by energizing free blacks to subvert slavery. It was easy enough to imagine a combination of abolitionist states financing such efforts, using the mails and the cover of commerce, aiming first at states where slavery was less secure.

Against such measure the Corwin Amendment would do nothing. Eventually, the abolitionists in the Union would have their way.

[Rockingham]

Approve or not, the principle of the Declaration that "all men are created equal" was a core argument by abolitionists and was relied on by Lincoln.

As stated in the Republican party platform of 1860:

2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the States, and the Union of the States must and shall be preserved.

For slaveholders, once Lincoln was elected, that provision was like a dagger pointed at them and slavery.

[DiogenesLamp]

Against such measure the Corwin Amendment would do nothing. Eventually, the abolitionists in the Union would have their way.

If they were so influential, why wasn't the amendment they attempted to pass to abolish slavery?

[FLT-bird]

For slaveholders, once Lincoln was elected, that provision was like a dagger pointed at them and slavery.

Why would that be? Lincoln orchestrated passage of the Corwin Amendment and endorsed it in his first inaugural address. He also offered strengthened fugitive slave laws. What he did not offer was any abatement of the Morrill Tariff.

[FLT-bird]

So long as the Union stood intact, abolitionist Northerners might overwhelm the South's system for maintaining slavery, and especially so by energizing free blacks to subvert slavery. It was easy enough to imagine a combination of abolitionist states financing such efforts, using the mails and the cover of commerce, aiming first at states where slavery was less secure. Against such measure the Corwin Amendment would do nothing. Eventually, the abolitionists in the Union would have their way.

There was no popular support for abolition. Abolitionists could not get more than single digit percentages of the vote anywhere in any election. How would free Blacks have subverted slavery? The thing that was actually subverting slavery was the same thing that subverted it in the various European colonial empires and slowly subverted it in the Northern states - industrialization. That was at work in the Upper South already as evidenced by the percentage of slave owners decreasing and the percentage of the Black population who were freedmen steadily increasing.

Secession on the other hand meant the end of slavery. There is simply no way the seceding states could have secured the border stretching from the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina all the way to El Paso Texas. Once in the US - now a foreign country - there was no duty to return those slaves. There was no fugitive slave clause of the Constitution to protect the slave owner. Obviously they must have seceded for a different reason.

[Rockingham]

The Morrill tariff was not a significant cause of secession. Slavery was the cause. Lincoln did not orchestrate the Corwin amendment. At the time, abolitionists were not a majority sentiment.

[FLT-bird]

So we are constantly told. I know the people who were trying to gain power from using it as a tool, talked about it constantly. Remember the liberals talking about "children in cages." Same kind of phenomena.

Bingo. Slavery was used as a wedge issue to separate the Southern States from the Midwestern States. Otherwise both would be aligned in opposing a high protective tariff which was heavily favored by New England which was more industrialized. There simply was no real support for abolition.

[FLT-bird]

Well put. In the North, public sentiment strongly favored fugitive slaves, even to the point of crowds gathering to impede the efforts of slave catchers. Alert Southern slaveholders realized well enough that effective enforcement of fugitive slave laws in the North had become impossible by the time of Lincoln’s election.

Had they? I'd have to see some evidence of that. Lincoln promised strengthened fugitive slave laws.

Of course we know slavery was safe within the union. Nobody thought the federal government had the power to ban it and there were enough slaveholding states to prevent the passage of any constitutional amendment that would have banned it. There was a fugitive slave clause in the Constitution that protected slave owners. For any state that seceded however - assuming it be allowed to depart in peace - slavery was doomed and quickly. The US would immediately be a foreign country with no obligation to return their escaped slaves.

[DiogenesLamp]

The Morrill tariff was not a significant cause of secession. Slavery was the cause.

What was the "nullification crises" about again?

Was it about "slavery?"

Cause we all know it couldn't be about anything other than "slavery."

[DiogenesLamp]

Lincoln did not orchestrate the Corwin amendment.

You would be surprised at how many of Lincoln's fingerprints are all over that thing.

[FLT-bird]

Secessionists didn’t trust the Republicans. They thought Lincoln would use his appointment power to build up the Republican Party in the Border States. Eventually, slavery would be abolished in those states and the Republicans would organize in the Upper South and do the same there.

This is pure fantasy.

The secessionists recognized the Corwin Amendment as a last minute attempt to hold the country together. The proposed Amendment did nothing to overcome their fear and their hatred of the Republicans.

Actually what the Corwin Amendment did was offer the original 7 seceding states no relief from the crushing tariff burden the Morrill tariff would impose.

The Deep South states were already gone when Lincoln took office. They’d gotten what they wanted. They assumed that slavery and their way of life would be secure as an independent nation.

No they didn't. Many recognized that slavery would be quickly doomed. There was no way they could secure the border. What they wanted was commercial independence. That's what they got via seceding. If they were commercially independent, their profits would soar. Even with slavery ending, the profits from low tariff trade and handling the export portion of it themselves would have easily enabled them to pay wages and still be far richer. Several Northern Newspapers pointed out that the South would win via secession and the North would lose.

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade. It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose. No, we must not let the South go." The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861

They weren’t going to do a U-turn and come back. And yes, the Corwin Amendment wouldn’t do anything about the fear of Northern abolitionists and slave revolts.

They weren't going to come back because that would have meant subjecting themselves to the economically devastating Morrill Tariff. Preservation of slavery was obviously not the main concern since slavery was much safer within the union than outside of it. In addition to that, slave owners represented less than 6% of the White Southern population. Everybody would be affected by the Morrill tariff however - not just less than 6% of the population.

[FLT-bird]

The Morrill tariff was not a significant cause of secession. Slavery was the cause. Lincoln did not orchestrate the Corwin amendment. At the time, abolitionists were not a majority sentiment.

No. Slavery was not the cause of secession. It was merely the legal pretext. Lincoln did orchestrate the writing and passage of the Corwin Amendment. Abolitionists were a tiny despised minority. the Morrill Tariff was the primary cause of secession.

[Rockingham]

Several Northern states passed laws that forbade local authorities from helping apprehend fugitive slaves. In addition, the Northern public often actively helped fugitive slaves. The net result was that Southern slaveholders frequently complained about the lack of enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Absent the restraints of Northern public opinion, slaveholders expected that the Confederacy as a whole would be more diligent and effective in controlling their slave population and preventing them from fleeing captivity.