Lincoln: Tyrant, Hypocrite or Consumate Statesman? (Dinesh defends our 2d Greatest Prez)

thehistorynet. ^ | Feb 12, 05 | D'Souza

[rdb3]

I've read hundreds of books and articles on the war from all sorts of points of view. My fundamental conception of the war is vastly different than it was when I first started studying it. I still find new facts that alter my views of the event from time to time. But the rate of change in my views has declined steadily as time has gone by.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the Civil War and plenty of abuses on both sides. Those who continually try to place blame on one side or the other in these threads will simply fail. It is sad to see facts ignored because they don't fit the propaganda of one side or the other. Those who engage in it are doing a disservice to the memory of both Lincoln and Lee who, despite any other flaws, desired an honorable reconciliation and reunion with malice toward none.

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Damn, man. That's the most well-reasoned, well-thought, and refreshing take on this subject that I've read in a long time.

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Its not a black and white answer. Very few things are.

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Didn't catch your pun, did you? ;-) Next time you're in Forrest City, honk your horn 3 times for me.

[basque]

When I teach Civil War, I offer five probable options as to cause:
Irrepressible conflict, slavery, sectionalism/nationalism, and competing economies. That said, I announce,"You have paid your money. Now take your choice. Personally, I favor irrepressible conflict as will most people who pass this course."

[GOPcapitalist]

But, still, the smaller the percentage of slaves and slaveowners, the less likely it was that a state would join the rebellion. That's a pretty good wholesale indicator, though of course, it can't account for everything.

...or it could just be a spurious correlation that hasn't been demonstrated under reputable statistical scrutiny.

[rdb3]

The only thing good that came from his actions, was that slaves were freed. But the price to our country was NOT worth it.

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Mike, Renee, mark this statement. #56

Of course, this great⁵-grandson of slaves was not asked.

[rwfromkansas]

Interesting.

I guess Lincoln was for ending slavery, but not having them live among us.

[djreece]

Great article.

(I just wish he had been more careful in his use of the term "the right." He seems to imply it is racist and pro-slavery.)

[cyborg]

Not worth it???I don't get it.

[Ditto]

Do you have a source for that quote?

[1iron]

Question: "What shall we do about those who seek our total annihilation?"

[Drennan Whyte]

Lincoln started this country down the road to big government...

I keep hearing you Southerners say that, and I suppose we're just supposed to accept that as true, but I would be interested in hearing you expound on that claim a bit more.

[libertarianben]

Someone already posted this on another Lincoln thread, but I'm stealing it anyway lol. It was a good point.

We are not one country today due to abolishing slavery but rather due to the fact that a firm and costly precedent has been established by Lincoln that attempts to separate by any section will be suppressed. I am also of the belief that this has produced undesirable consequences, particularly in that liberal regions of our country (new england and the northeast for example) have been able at times to exercise control of the U.S. Government and enact policies that were not desired by the more conservative regions of the country.

[Drennan Whyte]

All through the war Lincoln talked about and worked toward deporting every last black in the United States.

Considering how impossible it would have been to forcibly deport 4 million people against their will, and given that while Lincoln may have been may things he was not a stupid man, would you have anything to support that he advocated such a ridiculous scheme?

[libertarianben]

Question: "What shall we do about those who seek our total annihilation?"

Answer: "Send them to hell!"

[cyborg]

Thanks for posting that but it leaves me especially unnerved and unconvinced.

[libertarianben]

Thanks for posting that but it leaves me especially unnerved and unconvinced.

Unconvinced of what, may I ask?

Here's some quotes by Lincoln I think people might find interesting:

"Any People anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing governement and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Speech by Lincoln in Congrees January 1848.

Here's the punch line:

"No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of sucession, is the essence of anarchy." Lincoln speech made some time later.

I believe this known as a flip-flop.

How does he explain that other states thought of leaving the union long before the "Civil War?" Mass. for example.

[libertarianben]

I believe this is known as a flip-flop is what I meant to say.

[cyborg]

All this armchair theorizing at the expense of black people. Besides I want to hear Texconfederate explain why 'it wasn't worth it' hisself! You don't make such assinine statements without some backup. Very interesting how when coming to blacks it's never worth it but somehow other foreign wars and intervention are worth it.

[PLMerite]

One of the great things about being both a Southerner and a Republican is that I can hold Lincoln up as hero or villain, depending upon which hat I'm wearing.

[djreece]

But the price to our country was NOT worth it.

Your statement is sickening.

Personally, I believe the horror of the Civil War was the high price our country had to pay for tolerating the evil of slavery at all. The founders should not have compromised on the issue. It was a fatal flaw.

[x]

There doesn't seem to be much point in arguing "It was all about ...," "It wasn't all about ..." Historians take it for granted that there's rarely one reason why anything happens.

But it looks like you're playing a slippery game. You say: "Sure. Don't get me wrong, its my opinion that slavery was the fulcrum, the prime mover." And then, 'But I think its fairly meaningless to use the criteria of "the war would not have happened if"....as the determinant of causation. I would posit that if the program of industrialization and resultant immigration in the north had not occurred that northern sentiments would have been damped as they had been for decades before living with slavery as a neighbor. Thus no war and no secession. Just because I believe this is true does not lead me to say "industrialization and immigration is the ultimate cause."'

If something is "the fulcrum, the prime mover," it's likely that the event caused couldn't have happened without it. Of course any unique event results from a particular combination of unique events, but it looks like you are trying to equate various kinds of causes and not distinguishing between those that are more and less important.

According to Aristotle there are formal, material, efficient, and final causes. Something like state's rights may be a formal or material cause -- part of the general situtation that made the war possible -- without being an efficient or a final cause. Industrialization, and the invention of the cotton gin fall in a similar category. They helped to make possible secession and war, but they seem to be more contributory than primary factors. "Fulcrum" can be a pretty slippery term, but if slavery was in some way "the prime mover" that means it was more important than other contributory or secondary causes.

Discussions here tend to focus more on guilt and sin, good and evil, purity and impurity, rather than on what happened and why. Very often people are trying to get a "directed verdict." They assume that slavery was wrong and the South couldn't have been wrong, therefore slavery couldn't have been an important part of what the war was about.

So these discussions tend to be of limited use as history, and we get long pointless arguments about whether the war was "all about" slavery or not. If you recognize the importance of slavery, then you can also admit the significance of other factors without playing the chump's "it was all about"/"it wasn't all about" game.