Why Lincoln Still Matters(Compares America's founding principles and challenges to Iraq's struggles)

The Claremont Institute ^ | February 11, 2005 | Thomas L. Krannawitter

[Stoat]

About the Author:
 

Thomas L. Krannawitter is Vice President of the Claremont Institute, and Visiting Instructor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. Dr. Krannawitter holds a Master's degree and a Ph.D. in political science from the Claremont Graduate University, where he wrote a dissertation on Abraham Lincoln. He has received graduate and research fellowships from the John M. Olin Foundation, the H.B. Earhart Foundation, Winston Churchill Society, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Institute for Human Studies, and he was a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in 1998/99.

Dr. Krannawitter has been published in scholarly journals and newspapers, including Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Orange County Register, and he has made numerous appearances on national radio such as National Public Radio of Chicago, The Hugh Hewitt Show, and Warren Duffy's Live From L.A. Krannawitter has spoken widely before civic, political, educational, and religious organizations on the American Founding, constitutional jurisprudence, citizenship, and classical and modern political philosophy, and he has testified before the California legislature. He is Editor of a PBS website on George Washington, and recently he directed a civic education program for middle and high school teachers across the country.

[GeronL]

Oh please. Lincoln was a good man but the Civil War was entirely unncessary. He isn't one of my hero's.

[Capriole]

You are so ADORABLE! Do stoats like to cuddle with human ladies, or do you confine your attention to lady stoatesses? Do stoats like their ears fondled and their heads petted? How did you learn to type so well with your cute little paws?

[Stoat]

Oh please.

Well, at least you're using the word 'please' which appears to be beyond many people's abilities these days   :-)

Lincoln was a good man but the Civil War was entirely unncessary.

I suppose we could say that all wars are ultimately unnecessary then I guess.  This, however, opens up a very large can of worms which is / are irrelevant to the essay. 

 He isn't one of my hero's.

No one is suggesting that Lincoln or anyone else needs to be your hero.

[Californiajones]

"The Civil War was entirely unnecessary"? Tell that to African Americans.

Lincoln was, as his former enemy and then Secretary of War Stanton said upon Old Abe's deathbed: "There lies the greatest leader the world has ever known."

[GeronL]

The north didn't treat African-Americans all that much better than the South. Oh and what about the thousands of blacks who also owned slaves?

What Lincoln did ended up giving the left the excuse and precedent they needed to have the Feds take over everything.

[GloriaJane]

If you like the history of Lincoln then you know a little something about John Brown.

On a PBS documentry I learned that as a young democrat, John Wilks Booth, who later shot and killed Lincoln, had snuck into the closed hanging of John Brown some years earlier.

PBS also had links to the word of the original song "John Brown's Body" which I recorded. It's up online if you want to listen to it.

After Julia Ward Howe heard northern soldiers singing the
original version of the song as they marched, she wrote her
own words to it's tune. Soon after, her version, was
published in the "Atlantic Monthly" as "The Battle Hymn of
the Republic."

I think the song it's self makes a statement about the Republican party.

If you want to download it and listen to it it's at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007N2QFW/002-0943539-6424030?v=glance

Being as you know the history of the time I think you'll find it interesting.

[libertarianben]

Typical Yankee BS. The Civil War was never a civil war. A civil war is when groups fight over control over the same government. This was the South wanting to create it's own government. The North fought to "save the union" not to free the slaves. Slavery was under the US government for 80 years, so why was there not war fought to free them then? It was only when the South secessed when they talked of war. The war between the states violently destroyed the decentralized federal system of the Founders and opened a way for the vast centralized government of today. The Southern states had withdrawn from the Union by democratic process, the same process they had followed to join the Union initially. The war was unconstitutional but as they say the winners of war write the history.

[GloriaJane]

As I've read, the Republican party was founded by abolitionists who wanted to end slavery because they believed that all men were born of God to be free and by Kansas land owners who wanted to end slavery because they believed in free trade. The first Republican to be elected President was Abraham Lincoln.

[libertarianben]

Don't believe everything you read.

[GloriaJane]

In 1854, anti-slavery activists organized themselves into a new political party, the Republican party.


It's in all the encyclopedias. And the first Republican President to be elected was Abram Lincoln.

[libertarianben]

I know Lincoln was the first Republican president. I also know they were partly formed by abolitionist. I was saying just because they were anti-slave doesn't give them the right to lauch a unconstitution war against the South.

[libertarianben]

Besides the North doesn't have a history of treating black well either. You can read that in books as well.

[GloriaJane]

As it turned out, it ended up being one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to this country. IMHO

Freeing thousands from the bonds of human slavery is a wonderful thing! :)

[GloriaJane]

Yes, sadly there are racists everywhere. It will be a blessid day on this earth when that no longer exists! : )

[Christopher Lincoln]

In one sense the war was unnecessary. Research has confirmed what I have never doubted: a fraction of the material cost of the war would have been enough to buy the freedom of every slave in the United States. Lincoln proposed exactly this, but it seems that almost nobody else was interested, North or South.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

The north didn't treat African-Americans all that much better than the South. Oh and what about the thousands of blacks who also owned slaves?

Neither of those points has any bearing on the rectitude of slavery as it existed at the time in question or the desirability of eliminating it or preventing its expansion.

[Molly Pitcher]

Did he say that too? The more famous deathbed quote is "Now he belongs to the ages."

[HankReardon]

War was inevitable. If the South would have been allowed to leave the Union, there would have been ongoing border wars, innumerable disputes, grievances over commerce and trade. The longer the war was put off the more would have died when the war to end the issue finally took place. Lincoln was the Greatest President this nation ever had, followed by Washington, and then Reagan.

[libertarianben]

The South would have ended slavery in time as well. Slavery was dying all over Europe. That's the only reason Britian and others did not help the south. Robert E. Lee was against slavery, he was fighting for his homeland. Lincoln set a horrible example by invading the south and making it be part of the Union. The old Soviet Union and others used Lincoln as reason to keep their territories from breaking away. US complained about that but it had no problem with Lincoln doing it.