Posted on 11/26/2005 9:36:29 PM PST by Mier
While all the anti war cowards were screaming for Bush to cut and run and our willing accomplice main stream media acting like kids in a candy store. I heard someone on talk radio say that during the civil war Lincoln had his media detracters thrown in the bottom of a war ship until the war was over. But I can't find any facts on-line to back it up. Does any one know where I might go to find information on this? I mentioned this to a (left wing co-worker) and he thinks I made it up. I sure would like to prove him wrong! Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.
that's a YES/NO question.
free dixie,sw
Absolutely false. All were unarmed, almost all were civilians, and all were butchered by confederate forces.
ALL were GUILTY.
NONE were "civilians" (or at least they claimed to be "military". perhaps they LIED about that! LOL!)
ALL got what they richly deserved = DEATH. (too bad COL Quantrell didn't have time to HANG them!)
free dixie,sw
Nope.
The only thing that any of them were guilty of was not being members of Quantrill's scum.
So we are left with the fact that 100,000 blacks served as porters, never held (let alone fired) a weapon; while in the north 175,000 trained in firearms (the mark of liberty) and many actually fought; and we have more WHITE SOUTHERNERS who fought for Abe Lincoln than we have blacks who did physical labor (often for emancipation) for the Confederacy.
Thanks for continuing this discussion long enough to make an ass of yourself.
I believe most of them served (not "fought," because as you now have admitted, the vast, vast majority did not carry a weapon nor were they trusted to do so) for their manumission. The free blacks who fought for the Confederacy? Yep. They were too stupid to know that they were fighting for their own re-enslavement, just as Americans who fought for Hitler were not only traitors but fools. You nailed it. Thank you.
And that's a yes or no answer.
Oh, I see that the link I posted was something I sent my son about bad airports. My error. Here is the correct link for campus bias: Correct Link.
Engineering faculties are naturally much less political than the humanities. I don't know the political leanings my engineering faculties because the subject never came up. I taught briefly in grad school but went into private industry for my career. In industry the engineers and scientists I worked with, who were mostly PhD's, were almost all Republican. Quite a difference between the humanities and engineering/science.
Thanks for the recommendation on Bensel's book. I'd never heard of it before but will order it through Amazon if it's available. I've never read Shelby Foote though I've heard many good things about his books -- I'll have to get one of them as well.
With respect to Civil War history, I favor the Southern side as you can doubtless tell by my posts. I have Xerox copies of hundreds of pages of old newspapers from the war. Newspapers are not always the most accurate reflection of what's going on, but more often than not I've found them to contain good detailed information I can't find in history books. The newspapers also give me leads to things I look up elsewhere.
You know what Robert E. Lee said about newspaper editors: It appears that we sent all our best generals to work at newspapers. He said they should all come to the front and take over the generals' jobs.
I don't have a problem admitting that many Virginians or Tennesseeans who fought for the rebels weren't fighting for slavery above all else. But that doesn't change the fact that slavery was the most important factor in bringing secession and war about to begin with (which really wasn't what we were arguing about, was it?)
You said: "The only thing that mattered to most of the New Englanders was commerce and greed, to hell with the United States. Odd, how little has changed as to the mindset for that section of America."
I took issue with that. First of all it's not fair. Secondly it's not true.
New Englanders have fought in all of America's wars and went through much trouble in the Revolution. If some opposed the War of 1812 or the Mexican War it may not have been because they were "greedy," but because they didn't share the "greed" of those who wanted ever more land.
In 1861 the greedy New Englanders were all for getting along with the breakaway regime. It was the idealists who fought. Some fought precisely because they wanted an end to slavery, and many of them died for that. You can disagree with their stand, but their actions were not founded in greed. New England's record in history wasn't uniformly noble, but neither was it wholly mercenary.
You seem to want things all one way or all the other, though. Every possible good thing that can be said about the South proves that section's virtue and every bad thing that can be attributed to New England indicates that that region is beyond redemption.
And you do have a very strange conception of logic. I'll spare you the symbolic logic and diagrams, but if you can find one New Englander who acted out of greed it doesn't prove your contention that most of them were motivated by greed alone.
What's more, Sherman wasn't a New Englander, and the quote you cite has nothing to do with greed. It has to do with a strategy of using confiscation, destruction, and possibly resettlement to win a war. We can argue about whether that was the right course to follow, but Sherman wasn't acting out of greed any more than Eisenhower and MacArthur were "greedy" in seeking the destruction of Germany and Japan.
One reason why these debates go on so long and so pointlessly is that a lot of people aren't arguing about specific propositions that can be proven or disproven. Some of them are just throwing up things against the other "side" that may have little to do with what they set out to prove or disprove. So in the end the argument isn't about anything substantive. It's just an exchange of insults back and forth, just as your post that I objected to wasn't really something anyone could take very seriously.
Ahhh, that phrase again.
A characteristic noticeably lacking in the southron contingent.
Unfortunately, lacking all around these days. Makes me wonder if parents would be better to turn back to the switch instead of more "family time." (but that's another thread, another time)
Since the thread is about Lincoln and the media, perhaps you'd like to see how newspapers around the country responded to his first inaugural. See: Newspaper editorials about Lincoln.
Gee, every southern paper was disappointed. Surprise, surprise. In most of those states Lincoln was kept off the ballot to begin with. The Northern Democrat papers were disappointed. Imagine that. Do you have any other earth-shaking findings you care to share with us?
that is NOT what i said AND i note that you have NO sensible refutation of my criticism of your REVISIONIST/LEFTIST bilge & (frankly) LIES told by the statist/elitist LEFT.
PITY.
i expect BETTER from an academic colleague.
free dixie,sw
that will make you FEW friends with the Blacks on FR or indeed anywhere. (WATCH for flying rocks.)
btw, can you NAME even ONE American who WILLINGLY fought for hitler? (SOME few fought with the Condor Legion in SPAIN but not w/hitler in WW2.)
i think NOT.
free dixie,sw
The opposition papers (Southern and Northern Democrat) recognized Lincoln's clear intention to wage war. They were no dummies. The Republican papers, on the other hand, had their heads in the sand.
My analysis of the situation facing Lincoln is that he recognized the lower Southern tariff would send commerce to the South and he wouldn't have money to run the government. His government would likely fall if he did nothing.
His solution was find a way to instigate war. He had seen a war instigated in the case of the Mexican War -- at least, that was the Whig perspective on how the Mexican War started. In 1861, the North had far more people, industry, etc. and would likely prevail over the South in such a war, so war could solve his problem.
The problem was how to instigate it. At the start of his term, Congress wouldn't have voted to go to war. Well, he would generate a war without their official authorization.
The story put out by his administration in March was that Fort Sumter would be evacuated. That was conveyed to the Governor of South Carolina by Ward Lamon as personal messenger from the President and to the Southern Commissioners in DC by Seward or Stanton (I forget which).
The Senate was in session until late March 1861. They sent a messenger to the President asking if if he had anything more to convey to them. If not, they would shut down. The President replied that he didn't have anything to communicate with them. The Senate then adjourned.
The next day with Congress safely out of the way, Lincoln initiated the plan to send the fleet to resupply Sumter. He knew it would initiate war.
The President knew that the South Carolinians would block any attempt to resupply the fort. They had fired on the Star of the West earlier. Well, Lincoln would use this attitude of the South to make the South initiate fighting. This would generate patriotic feeling in the North, and Lincoln would have the support of the Northern people against those who had fired on the flag.
Lincoln (and/or Seward) secretly redirected the Powhatan away from Charleston, so a crucial element of support for the Sumter resupply effort was missing. The resupply would probably fail without the Powhatan. I suspect Lincoln did not want to have to keep making resupply efforts to the fort, so it was in his interest to have the resupply fail.
And his plotting worked. The South resisted the resupply as they said they would and Lincoln got the support from the North he had hoped for.
Lincoln's next problem was to keep Congress away for as long as he could so they would not be able to block his various actions. He put off convening Congress until July. That was as far as he could put them off and still have the 90-day militia volunteers from Northern states still on duty.
Then while Congress was not there (because he didn't have them convene until July), Lincoln did all those unconstitutional things like redirect money for a different purpose than what it had been appropriated for, increase the size of the army and navy and length of service, suspend habeas corpus, etc. These were constitutionally the responsibilities of Congress, not the President.
That is my version of history gathered from a trip in Mr. Peabody's wayback machine.
Earthshaking? I doubt it. The opposition newspapers interpreted his inaugural speech correctly. Lincoln meant war.
No less than TENNESSEAN Andrew Jackson said he'd hang John C. Calhoun and shoot any rebels if they resisted the federal tariff.
I predict it won't be long before you tell us that the KKK was a "benevolent fraternal organization."
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