When Lincoln Returned to Richmond

The Weekly Standard ^ | 12/29/03 | Andrew Ferguson

[Grand Old Partisan]

Abraham Lincoln, with his son Tad in tow, walked around Richmond, Virginia, one day 138 years ago, and if you try to retrace their steps today you won't see much that they saw, which shouldn't be a surprise, of course. The street grid is the same, though, and if you're in the right mood and know what to look for, the lineaments of the earlier city begin to surface, like the outline of a scuttled old scow rising through the shallows of a pond. Among the tangle of freeway interchanges and office buildings you'll come across an overgrown park or a line of red-brick townhouses, an unlikely old belltower or a few churches scattered from block to block, dating to the decades before the Civil War and still giving off vibrations from long ago.

[Gunslingr3]

Another damn Neo-confederate myth. The ONLY people who got in trouble were those urging munity or disertion from the army.

So when he rounded up members of the Maryland legislature and prevented the duly elected representatives of the people of Maryland from meeting, this was because they were organizing mutiny? Why didn't he charge them? Why not have trials and let a jury decide? Afraid the people of Maryland might actually agree with the legislators they elected? Wouldn't look good I suppose to have the U.S. Capitol end up in the midst of the Confederacy by one more act of secession, eh?

How did he decide he could eliminate habeus corpus and start dismantling State governments? I suppose it's easier to send the army to round them up, imprison them, and use the troops to intimidate future voters...

[Grand Old Partisan]

"Would you join an army to conquer another set of people who had expressed through their duly elected legislature a desire to set their own laws?" -- NO

"would you join an army to bury the very principle of the Declaration of Independence?" -- NO

[Gunslingr3]

"Would you join an army to conquer another set of people who had expressed through their duly elected legislature a desire to set their own laws?" -- NO

"would you join an army to bury the very principle of the Declaration of Independence?" -- NO

So what about Lincoln's invasion do you support, given that it was was initiated with the express interest of denying the will of another set of people to enact their own laws through duly elected legislatures and not to 'free slaves'?

[Grand Old Partisan]

A state government that rebelled against the United States Government was no longer illegitimate, no matter how many traitors thought otherwise. Same goes for a state government today that would try to join Mexico or implement the Sharia instead of the U.S. Constitution.

The United States Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and all office-holder are sworn to uphold it. Any government official who rebels against his oath of loyalty to the United States Constitution is a traitor, thus illegitimate and not "duly" anything. Article IV, Section IV clearly empowers the United States Government to disregard rebel assemblages, just as the United States Supreme Court decided shortly after the Civil War.

[Grand Old Partisan]

There is only one set of people, the people of the UNITED States of America. The U.S. Army and Navy, under its Coomander-in-Chief, did not invade, as that term refers to going into another country. The rebellious southern states were just as much U.S. territory as Maine or Iowa.

[Zack Nguyen]

Millions of Americans lived in slavery. Such a thing was an abomination to God, and I am glad that the military was sent into the South to keep the Union together, and later to give slaves their freedom.

I am a Texan and proud of it. But when you have a Constitution that guarantees freedom and yet half the country sees fit to put its people in chains, you have to expect that judgment will come.

[Gunslingr3]

A state government that rebelled against the United States Government was no longer illegitimate, no matter how many traitors thought otherwise.

So you don't believe in the Declaration of Indendence. Further discussion is pretty pointless.

[Zack Nguyen]

The pro-Confederate faction around here wants us all to believe that millions of Southerners would throw their lives away and risk near national extinction because they disagreed with tariff policy. No, they went to war because they were losing the most important issue of the 19th century: whether millions of blacks that lived in their land would remain totally subservient to them.

[Gunslingr3]

A state government that rebelled against the United States Government was no longer illegitimate, no matter how many traitors thought otherwise.

I just caught the double negative, which makes that even funnier...

Chew on this scenario. The U.S. has joined the U.N. The other 'equal' members of the U.N. form a majority and decide to impose and enforce legislation the U.S. feels violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the original charter. They seek to withdraw from the political structure of the U.N. and maintain their own laws, by their duly and locally elected representatives. Your political theory holds them forever to the U.N. Permits the U.N. to invade and conquer them (or whatever you want to call it when troops march into other terrority and burn down cities and impose their authority by force of arms), and determine precisely how much sovereignty they may have to write their laws. We're all 'U.N. people', right...

[wideminded]

I visited Richmond with my son a couple of years ago. While I have never been a sympathizer with the Confederate cause, I had to admit that the Museum of the Confederacy was one of the finest museums I have been to, in terms of the consistent interest of all its exhibits. The shocking thing though was that for some reason the museum and the adjoining Confederate White House had deeded some surrounding land that they owned to a local university hospital. The hospital then put up a multi-story building that towers over the back of the museum and Jefferson Davis's house. The effect is that these historic buildings are surrounded by this hospital complex, as in The Little House in the Big City. It is totally un-aesthetic and ruins the historic context of the location. I was discussing this with the tour guide in the Confederate White House. She said she thought it was pretty sad. Although I have always considered myself 100% northerner, I had to agree with her.

[Grand Old Partisan]

The museum displays Jefferson Davis' shackles, but neglects to mention that the man who imprisoned him so was not the Republican, Abraham Lincoln, but the Democrat, Andrew Johnson.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Exactly, treasonous southerners rebelled to preserve slavery, despite all this blathering about tariffs and such.

[Ditto]

Afraid the people of Maryland might actually agree with the legislators they elected?

It was actually the other way around my friend. The crooked Baltimore pols of today are nothing new in Maryland politics. The people of that state did not want secession.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Among the first fatalities of the Civil War was when a mob of Baltimore Democrats tried to prevent the United States Army from marching to the defense of our nation's capital.

[wideminded]

The museum displays Jefferson Davis' shackles, but neglects to mention that the man who imprisoned him so was not the Republican, Abraham Lincoln, but the Democrat, Andrew Johnson.

I do not recall seeing these items in the museum and I believe I looked closely at every display. Maybe they were not on display that day. Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia. His shackles were apparently removed after the public (in the North) criticized this type of treatment. I did not find any information on Google as to their current location.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Perhaps they've been removed from display. I remember seeing JD's rocking chair and leg irons.

[Gunslingr3]

The people of that state did not want secession.

And even if they did, "give them the bayonet!" right...

[Leatherneck_MT]

Lincoln was a traitor to the very constitution that he swore to uphold and defend.

I'm glad that son of a bitch was shot.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Let's see you and some of your pals declare your secession from the United States of America and then fire on a U.S. Army fort. Soldiers of the U.S. Army would line up to give you and yours the bayonet too.

[Grand Old Partisan]

A (presumably) former Marine ought to be more careful in advocating the assasination of a Commander-in-Chief.